A couple weeks ago, I wrote about designing an effective email marketing campaign on my cgwebhelp blog. One of the things I mentioned was not to use unnecessary click-throughs. I was being subjected to emails with obscure headlines, excessive images and the words “Click here”. That design strategy offers no incentive to click through to the main offer. Just the use of the words “CLICK HERE” sends me into a professional frenzy. The words, while directing the user what to do, fail to give a clue as to why they should do it. The better strategy is to choose contextual links that describe to the reader what reward awaits upon their click-through. “See our product selection”, “order now” or “view event details” are better links than “click here” as they tell readers where their click will lead them.
But today, I came across an email promotion with the opposite but equally annoying problem. It had no click-through’s at all. It was a sales promotion that was offering a deal on signs. I just happen to be in the market for some new signs, so I wandered my mouse around the page looking for the click-through to the website. After all they were offering 50% off! Not a single click-through to the website selling the signs. Obviously this is a major oversight. Without a single click-through, the reader is forced to type the web address into her browser. Not only does it make it less likely that people will actually go to the website being promoted, but the sender of the email loses all tracking capability for his email campaign.
As you probably know, if you’ve used a commercial email marketing program, links within an email marketing piece are coded so the sender can track who has clicked through on a particular link. This gives the sender useful information. First, it tells the sender what text or promo generated the most interest. But more importantly, it tells the sender who clicked through on a link, so if they’re running a smart promotion, they can follow up with the people who clicked through and perhaps close the sale, or at least continue to send the reader information that is targeted to their interests.
Make sure you use smart click-through links and good email design strategies to get the most value from your email marketing campaigns.