The conventional wisdom we – and most email marketers – have been following may just be wrong.
It’s frequently suggested that an email newsletter is best built with small bites of information that include links to more in-depth content on your website. The idea behind this is to keep the email short and digestible while also driving traffic to your site where conversion typically happens.
Is that still the best approach? Not according to Andrew Davis’ column in the latest issue of Chief Content Officer. He argues that when he’s reading your marketing email, he’s most likely in “email mode,” meaning he’s trying to plow through as many emails as he can as quickly as he can.If you ask him to click through to your website, well, he’s far more likely to click Delete than your link.
He has a point, though I think he’s over-simplifying things. Clearly if you’re email is ecommerce focused, the click through is important. Conversion in the form of a transaction can only happen on your website.
Less obvious are examples where the value you’re bringing to people’s inbox is in the depth of information you can provide. Again, a link to your website is in order – and for the same reasons Mr. Davis cites: someone in email mode wants to clear their inbox of distractions; give her the opportunity to open a browser tab to read later and she is more likely to read later rather than delete now.
