The most important thing is get straight to the point. If you can say the same thing with less words then do it. Using bullet points when appropriate is a good way to achieve this. Never have too many words in one area and develop an eye for the right amount of spacing. A good way to test these concepts is by finding someone that has no idea what email your creating. Tell them they need to gather as much information as they can very quickly. Show the participant the email for 2 seconds then minimize it. Ask them what the email was trying to convey. If they can answer then you’ve done a good job.

A common tactic is to include a sense of urgency. This is where the infamous "expiration date" shows its horns. There is always a deadline because most people are procrastinators! If there wasn’t the expiration date or the limited time sale then everyone would just put it off for another day. Make sure your readers see the message so include it more than once.

Never abuse your email list by overwhelming your following with constant email blasts. It’s good to remind people of your presence but overdoing it will cause people to unsubscribe.

People love images, so that means use a ton of them in my template right? Wrong. In any email browser images are set to not be displayed by default. Either the user needs to allow images to be displayed every time an email is opened or change the default settings.

So what does this mean? Your email needs to still look presentable and functional without the help of images. This can be a bit discouraging but luckily the power of font style and color coordination is immense. Keep your color scheme for graphics and text to 2-4 colors. It’s important your color scheme flows and looks coordinated. Google ‘color scheme generator’ and the first link is an amazing tool for showing off this concept.

You also want deep contrast of dark/light if you place text over a colored background. This will make your text pop so it’s clearly readable. Text over a very dark background should usually be white. Don’t forget to vary the size of your font sizes. Very important points should be larger text size than less important ones. This also adds depth to your email and makes it easier to skim over.

Follow these guidelines and your email marketing campaign should be a success.