As digital communications become a greater part of every company’s marketing efforts, email-based communications (which we at Meister Media term ‘eDirects’) have become increasingly attractive alternatives to traditional direct mail. But just sending an email to a strategically selected list of customers or prospects is not enough to deliver success.
Design matters in direct mail, and it represents an even more critical component of an eDirect effort, especially if your goal with the eDirect is driving click-through activity to your website. So, here are four keys to designing an eDirect that will deliver click-through activity.
- Content matters most of all. Give the audience a compelling reason to click-through to your site — don’t just hope they will. But make sure info in the creative leaves them wanting more — don’t put so much content into it that there’s no need to click through.
- Include clear calls to action. Be clear and direct when telling the audience what you want them to do and why they should do it. “Click here for a 10% off coupon.” “Click now for a video that tells you more.” “Get a free fertilization report by clicking here.”
- The more URLS the better (within reason). More opportunities to click generally means more total clicks, but don’t fill the creative with seven links to the same page. Offer links to multiple parts of your site! We recommend four to six.
- Link from images. This may not be make sense to everyone and it flies in the face of having a clear call to action, but people regularly click on images in eDirects. Make sure your images are live links.
For more eDirect design tips or for a summary of our benchmark data on eDirect performance in the markets Meister Media serves, please contact your Meister Media sales rep or our Director of Interactive Sales, Bob West, at [email protected] or 440-602-9129.