8 Essential Tips to Write a High-Engagement Email
Ever wonder about the real reasons why your campaign’s email engagement has gone down or how you should go about delivering the best-performing campaign? This will be different from the typical list you are used to seeing.
Instead, we’ll focus on the details and operations required before an email is even delivered. These details will make or break your campaign’s and overarching email program’s success — not just the content.
The singular most important tip on this list is #1: respecting your customer and providing value. Without this, your campaign will be unlikely to succeed regardless of your pre-planned KPIs and goals.
1. Respect
Only send marketing emails if they respectfully add value to your recipient/customer. If they solely contribute to the business’ revenue objectives, you are catering to the incorrect audience, and you ought to take another look at the initial campaign brief.
Once you have narrowed and identified the value-add, you must ensure your email doesn't end up in the spam folder.
2. Deliverability
Dedicated experts can help ensure that your DMARC, SPF, DKIM, and other settings are set up correctly within your ESP alongside your IT/Marketing Ops team. (There is also always the #email-deliverability channel within the Email Geeks community for advice.) If you’re unsure where to start, About My Email is the best first step.
This is an absolute must for your email to reach the inbox instead of spam. Your IP-sending reputation is gold, so use it wisely. Also, ensure your Sales team keeps your domain intact by using a separate IP altogether; otherwise, you will face irrecoverable consequences due to outbound emails.
As a reminder, your email should arrive in the Promotions tab in Gmail. That’s not a knock on your content – it means your email arrived correctly. Don’t try to override it; the algorithm will only continue to get smarter.
3. Subject Line
Your subject line is the first thing recipients see. Make it clear, simple, concise, intriguing, and 45 characters or less.
Ensure it’s relevant to the content of your email, as we do not want to break any email laws regarding this. There are plenty of lists of excellent emails and think-pieces on this topic, and here are a few more:
- 3 ways to improve your efficiency
- Where to eat this weekend, [first_name]
- This week's top AI news
4. Accessibility (a11y)
The second item your customers used to see was the email marketer's beloved preheader. Yet, for customers with iOS 18 devices and Apple AI, it has become the succinct summary of your email. This summarization cannot happen if your email is all image-based, which means it's inaccessible.
Does your audience not use iOS? What about Microsoft Outlook? Outlook blocks all images from senders by default. To circumvent this for every device, inclusivity and accessibility must be at the forefront of everyone's mind.
Accessibility (a11y) is often an overlooked aspect of email creation, but it should be at the forefront of your company's digital-first decision-making process (this includes your website!). In short, this means the following:
- Having a good text-to-image ratio. 70/30 is a great rule of thumb, and this means not having entirely image-based emails.
- Include alt text for all images.
- All buttons are live-text and not image-based.
- Ensure the color contrast and brand colors are, at a minimum, a 4.5:1 ratio.
- Avoid colors to convey meaning.
- Properly label attributes to help assistive technology (screen readers).
Once you’ve covered your accessibility bases, next up is your unsubscribe link.