What does a high-performing email look like that your contacts will fall in love with? In order to do this, you will need an awesome email strategy, keeping in mind the key components of a high-performing email.

Before you press send on your email, let us take a deeper look at what a high-performing email does look like in action and at its main components.

Let us have a look at the key components of an awesome high-performing email: Email Template, Footer & CAN-SPAM compliance, Images, and Overall Design.

Email Template

First, you need to choose which email template you are going to use, HTML or text-based, and yes, marketers have discussed which is better to death. The overall choose of course is yours to make.

Now, there is a bunch of discussion on this very subject, particularly on whether what works best for B2B and B2C. The most important thing about ether template you use your contacts needs to know what you are conveying to them. Keep your emails clean and straightforward design to show the value of your email.

The email template you choose to use will set the foundation you will design your email around to provide value with.

As with everything your contacts will be opening your emails on different devices and with different email providers. By creating an email template that supports you in creating an email, will take a lot of weight off your shoulders. Plus, help get your valuable content out faster.

You will want to create a few different types of emails that are on-brand with your website, like one for your newsletter, blog updates, promotion of a product or service.

Footer & CAN-SPAM Compliance

The footer and CAN-SPAM compliance section of your email is a very important part. You need to include a footer section for your emails, and in that footer, you will include information that will make your emails CAN-SPAM compliant. 

Most major autoresponders already add this to the bottom of your emails. So, check to see if your autoresponder does this automatically.

Every time you send a marketing email, you Must be CAN-SPAM compliant. In case you did not know, the CAN-SPAM Act is a Law that sets the rules for all commercial emails. This law first of sets all the requirements for commercial messages. Secondly, it gives your contacts the RIGHT to opt-out of you emailing them any more. Thirdly it spells out the rough & tough penalties for any and all violations.

In order to be compliant with the CAN-SPAM Law your footer must include your Physical address and an Unsubscribe link for your contacts to be able to access at any time they wish.

In other words, You must include your companies name, physical (street) address, city, state, and your company’s link to either an email preference or an unsubscribe link.

Do not forget that an important part of all emails is to build trust, and by giving your contacts the ability to unsubscribe, believe it or not, will help build trust.

Images

Last but not least, you will want to look at your images and the overall design of your emails.

The images you use can be an awesome way to engage your contacts, not to mention a little bit of flair to your emails.

One thing you will want to consider when using images is that not all email clients are created equal. A few email client providers will not automatically load the images you will be sending in your email. This means your contacts will not see your images at all. So, first, you will want to know why is that? Because your email is too image-heavy or is it because the images do not load?

In either of these cases, image-heavy or images do not load you need to make sure it still looks nice to the eyes. Your layout still needs to look visually engaging even without any images showing. Is your email hierarchy still visually appealing to guide your contact to your desired overall action?

Send yourself an email, before you send it to your contacts, and look at that email on different devices from a desktop to your mobile phone. How is the overall feel, give it a good proofreading, and how are your images presented on these different devices screens? 

Make sure to take the time to check your emails before your press send, by minimizing your mistakes.

Overall Design

Your email’s overall design is just as important as your landing and website pages, and just like your pages, you can use multiple columns.

Now when sending your emails make sure to be as clear as possible. Of course one of the best ways to do this is by using fewer columns. By doing this you will have the most control over how your email will appear in your contacts email provider as well as your visual hierarchy you created.

Do not forget that if your design is too complex and or communicating a lot of information. Your contacts may get confused on what your overall goal is and the value that you have just given them.

Conclusion

Remember you and your contacts are not interacting in a bubble, called your email. They are interacting with your blog, plus, with you on social media. You need to ask yourself if all that information needs to be in your email, or should you use the other channels at your dispense to communicate and vary that value and information.

I believe we all can say that email is the best choice to have a conversation with your contacts, but we are not able to do everything with email. Use all the channels at your disposal to your advantage and to grow your readers.

By using these key components, email template, footer information & CAN-SPAM compliance, Images, and overall design, you can create an awesomely high-performing email that your contacts will engage with are receiving value from.

The overall goal of your emails, are to be helpful and human, by providing value with each email send to further your conversation with your contacts.