Want Clicks? Don’t Give It All Away!

Outside of long-form roundup emails the goal of most email creatives is to get your subscriber to “CLICK” a link to visit your website or the offer you are trying to promote.

The problem? A lot of times we give away so much of the information away in the email, the subscribers don’t find a need to click your link.

I’m going to share with you a perfect example from the launch of one of our new brands a few months ago, “Today’s Flashback”.

The Initial Email Creative

Initially, we thought that our newsletter was on brand and delivered on what the subscriber wanted. We were sharing events from the past and allowing people to visit (Step Back in Time) the site to learn more about what happened and why it was important.

Email Activity Stats

In the beginning, we had great open rates which told us the subscribers were interested in the content.

But, our CTR (Click-Through-Rates) were not close to the metrics we shoot for which is at least 3%+.

We were consistently getting low 1% and even sub 1% CTR which you can see below.

What was the problem?

We knew people were interested in the content as our open rates were consistently well over 50% and our unsub and complaint rates were below industry standards.

What we weren’t doing, was giving them a reason to “CLICK” and visit the website.

For starters, we were telling everyone what the event was by providing the Event Title in the creative. For those who are just interested in what event happened that day they had no reason to visit the site.

Also, we wanted to go with a sleek and modern branding experience, but this lead to NO strong call-to-action.

Our Updated Email Creative

After determining that we were giving all the details away by providing the event name, and that our call-to-action was extremely weak, we updated our template to what you see below.

1. Removed the Event Title

2. Strong Click Here Call-to-Action Button

3. Supporting FOMO text below button

Updated Email Activity Stats

The results… a homerun. We 3 to 5x’d the CTR. The stats have held strong even with the growth of the subscriber base as you can see below.

For the size of this list, it is outperforming some of our larger publications based on the engagement of it’s subscribers.

The Takeaway!

It’s simple… don’t give everything away in the content of your email (just tease what they will get) and make sure you have a strong call-to-action, which is clearly understood by the reader.

Ask yourself:

• Am I giving away to much information? - Answer should be NO

• Do I have a clear and visible call-to-action? - Answer should be YES

One Last Tip

When writing headlines for articles, you need to be careful to not give everything away. When we are providing just an image and a headline for an article in a newsletter, we like to keep things open ended as to not give away to much information.

Examples:

If an article is geo/location specific, which means the event is tied to a city, state, or country, I like to keep the location out of the headline in the email.

• Website Headline: Alabama Halts IVF Treatments Amid Embryo Rights Ruling Controversy

• Email Headline: IVF Treatments Halted by The State of…

Articles of celebrities are very popular and drive a lot of engagement, but you can also play with the headlines to not always give it all away.

• Website Headline: George Lopez Exits Sold-Out Show Early

• Email Headline: Famous Comedian Cuts Sold-Out Show Early

Big box retailers and tech giants are also an engagement needle movers.

• Website Headline: Walmart to Close Numerous Stores by 2024

• Email Headline: Retail Behemoth to Close Numerous Stores by 2024

These are just some examples of how you can rewrite headlines to try and tease but not give away who is behind it.

I recommend testing for yourself to see what works, as sometimes it’s best to include the name of the individual or company as that will help drive the interest.

This is very true for Donald Trump as an example. You always want to include Trump in the headline if the article includes him.

Make sure you’re testing different email creatives to get the most out of your emails.

Let’s increase the engagement of your subscribers,
Chris Miquel

Follow me on Twitter: @miqchris