Early Email #011: What makes a good email?
Hiya! Saluton!
Question for ya—what makes a good email? What about a great email? (Hit reply, I want to know!).
Not counting how much money it's made or other metrics, how can you tell an email done right?
Do you only look at the design? Focused on copy?
Personally, I love studying emails, and I make it my business to learn as much about them as possible.
Which is why I analyze many of them. I've seen some pretty fantastic emails, and some pretty sad ones, too.
Developing an eye for great, good, and "needs improvement" emails can help you:
1. Spot areas of conversion and optimization opportunities
2. Direct and teach your designers on how you like your emails (plus give better feedback)
3. Improve your emails overall
Now, it's not lost on me that I have my own preferences. So how do I evaluate emails with some measure of consistency and fairness?
I use a ten-point system and judge an email with this set of criteria:
* Design
* Copy
* CTA
* Branding
* Unsubscribe
Basically, I look at each criteria and give it a score between 0 and 2.
0 if the criteria/element is completely absent
1 if it's present but need a lot of work
2 if it just needs a minor tweak (or it's perfect).
Here's a video I created to show you how this works PLUS how I use it in action: Email Teardown Episode #1: How to systematically analyze (teardown) an eCommerce email
I've done a couple more of these "teardowns." Here's the playlist on YouTube: eCommerce Email Teardown Playlist
Once you start doing these yourself, you'd be surprised by how much bias you have and how deceptive good-looking emails can be.
I hope you give it a try!
As always, if you have any questions, I'm only an email away. And yes, I do want to hear how you evaluate emails. Hit reply gosh! =)
Happy emailing,
Kat
P.S. BFCM is on my mind (and my workload), and that's what I'll be talking about in the next few weeks.
P.P.S. I'm also releasing a BFCM course. But I was told I shouldn't sell anything to my newsletter friends anything until a year has passed—so I won't try to sell the course to you. I'm just gonna mention it in the P.S. once it's out. lolz.
