This post was derived from my recent speaking engagement at Click Z’s Specific: Email Marketing conference in NYC. I gave a talk titled “Cutting Through the Clutter Creatively” which focused on why marketers should be strategic when considering the creative variables that make up their email marketing campaigns.

More than ever the inbox is a challenging place to capture the attention of your recipients. Some of the stats that I referenced at my talk include the Nielsen Norman research whichs states that the average recipient of marketing or promotional email has an attention span of your email of five seconds or less. And those monthly newsletters we all work so hard on producing typically only capture the attention of users for 40-50 seconds max. This information reinforces the fact that creative elements can sometimes make or break your email marketing efforts.

The key creative variables in email that marketers must embrace are the following:

From: Build the trust of your recipients by making your identity obvious. Be consistent with your From line, make sure its branded with your company name or an individual from your organization.

Subject Line: Jupiter Research found that 35% of email users open email based on what is contained within the subject line. Be sure to include your company name or brand name within the subject line, as recent research shows this can have a dramatic effect on open rates.

Copy: Personalized, targeted and relevant are three words that should define the copy in your email marketing campaigns. Write clear and concise copy, putting your main message and identifiers above the fold, and make sure you use fonts and a font size that makes reading your email easy on the eye.

Imagery: Always include your company logo at the top right or somewhere on the header. This helps with establishing the brand recognition. Always have your audience in mind and use relevant imagery that is targeted towards your recipent and tailored around your message. Be sure to hyperlink all imagery to your main call to action.

Call to Action: Place your key call to action above the fold as often as possible. During your testing phase, conduct your own internal “5 second test” to a small group of individuals to make sure your call to action is clear and to the point.

During my talk I also mentioned the importance of keeping your landing page consistent with your email creative. If you do manage to get a recipient to open and then act on your email, don’t lead them astray. Targeted landing pages with consistent creative elements can go a long way in increasing your conversion rate.

Finally, we all know that one of the best attributes of the email medium is that its easy to test and tweak your initiative. Every audience is different, so learn as much as you can about your list of recipients by testing a variety of creative elements before drawing any hard conclusions on what works and what doesn’t.

If you are interested in receiving a copy of my power point presentation from Click Z Specifics, feel free to email me at greg [at] blueskyfactory [dot] com.

Happy emailing!