I don’t know about you. but I love a good email newsletter. I even have one of my own here. One thing I know is…
If it ain’t easy, I ain’t readin’ it.
Here are 3 style mistakes with easy changes to get your emails noticed, revved up, and read.
1. The type color is so light I need a flashlight to see it.
I am a huge fan of a certain life/writing coach. She sends motivational emails to my inbox regularly.
And, I stopped reading them.
Why? The text color is light gray, small, and her words are excruciating to read on my phone. Let’s face it — You’re probably on your phone now.
According to the the US Consumer Device Preference Report: Q4 2013, 65% of emails are opened first on a mobile device. You want your subscribers to be content and comfortable while reading your brilliant prose. Make it easy for them. Keep you text color dark. Add in some fun colors to highlight certain ideas, but keep it minimal or we’ll have a #4 for this list.
2. You use crazy fonts — and a lot of them.
Okay, we all love a good font. And, those scary ones or medieval ones are great for Fall-themed posters and Renaissance fairs, but when your readers are trying to…well…read — Keep it Simple.
Whether serif or sans serif is your preference, it’s your call. Stick with two different font styles and you’ll be all set. Any more than that tends to get messy. And, if you’re a writer, you have projects. Keep it simple and get your email out into the world for your content-hungry followers to devour.
3. My name is not [First Name].
We’ve all received them. In fact, I got one today from a famous marketer who’s goal in life is to teach me to make as much money as she has. Mistakes do happen. And, in this digital age, technology at times likes to prove its dominance over us by messing up html, destroying perfectly good content, and deleting our masterpieces for no apparent reason.
This comes back to the old grade-school math adage — Check your work!
In the email client I use, there is a wonderful button called, “Send test email.” I can send this email to whichever email I choose, and let me tell you, I’m so glad I do!
From weird title lines, to the whole [First Name] fiasco, I’ve caught these (most of the time) before my eager readers got the chance to see that I’m human, too.
We are in a time of emails. My 11 year old needed an email address to sign up for an age-appropriate website the other day. We used mine, since I’m not ready for what could potentially happen to my tween with an email account.
She’s now getting emails, too. With fonts and images and wacky colors. Embrace the email. Make it easy to read, and your subscribers will embrace you, too.
Yes. These are very helpful reminders. Thank you. My favorite sentence is this one: “In fact, I got one today from a famous marketer whose goal in life is to teach me to make as much money as she has.” I sure get a LOT of these. And I recently learned how many advertising/marketing gurus use very complicated (and somewhat expensive) artificial intelligence companies to create long, complicated, seemingly authentic flow charts for ongoing, automated email interactions with potential customers/clients… Argh. That’s one reason I like the wordpress community. It consists of real people leaving real comments — not well-programmed algorithms pretending to communicate with me.
I so appreciate you leaving me a real-life comment! I agree with you on the WordPress community. It’s been so nice to engage with real people. I’ve noticed a new trend on Instagram lately of the “promote on @so-and-so” comment. I get them as soon as I publish a new post. I’m wondering if those are real people doing their marketing job or a chat bot.
Real, authentic comments drive relationships propelling EVERYONE forward. I’m striving for that.