Leadership and organisational development consultancy, Stanton Marris, uses its ‘Inside Track’ email to maintain brand awareness and offer positive, useful information to its mailing list.

With a readership of mainly busy senior executives across a range of sectors, from finance to FMCG and central government, it’s important they grab their recipients’ interest from the get go. However, could slight changes to the structure and presentation of this e-shot have a dramatic effect on response?

Positive elements

1. ‘Inside Track’ is a good choice of title. It’s notoriously difficult to get the attention of this busy target audience. However, ‘Inside Track’ tells the reader they are being given insider information and are privy to something exclusive that may be useful to them professionally. The company strap line and branding are also clearly visible, which is key for maintaining brand awareness.

2. Including a navigation bar is a simple and efficient method of drawing a recipient straight back to your website. It also reduces the need to use valuable space in the newsletter explaining who you are and why you’re sending the e-shot.

3. The introductory summary is an essential part of an e-shot. It’s important to make your communications as user friendly as possible. The reader can find out quickly whether the content is relevant to them, without having to plough through all the text. They can be selective about which articles they read.

4. Delineating clear sections is also a good move. Thenewsletter appears more easily digestible to the reader because each part of the content has a clear purpose. The colour codes also provide a helpful visual guide. Using sections is a helpful tool when it comes to choosing the articles, too. Having clear goals for your content means you can plan your ideas well in advance.

5. Some email clients may not render the e-shot as you had intended or may fail to load it altogether. Giving the recipient the option to read it online is essential. It’s also good to see the company registration details and an unsubscribe option has been included.

6. The choice of images here is effective. Images should always add something useful to the content otherwise they can be distracting. Here the pile of papers and the clock break up the text and provide a good visual illustration of what’s being discussed.

How could it be improved?

1. Very few people read introductory paragraphs of text instead choosing to scan the email for something of interest. A more effective way of summarising is a short bulleted list that links to the article pages, taking readers straight to your website.

2. Currently, the titles in the grey header bars have more visual prominence than the article titles themselves and ‘Tip of the month’ or ‘In the news’ don’t give any indication as to the content they’re promoting. Time-poor readers, looking over your email, may quickly switch off. Consider making these header areas smaller and increasing the size of the promo titles.

3. The promo titles themselves also require careful thought – ensure they really give a clear idea of what the article is about. Titles like of ‘Simplicity Minded Management, Harvard Business Review’ could be quite cryptic to some readers. Instead explain the core message of the article, ‘De-clutter your organisation’ for example.

4. The design could make more economical use of the given space. The newsletter is very linear, with all sections one on top of the other, requiring you to scroll to see the bulk of the content. This could be a deterrent to a many readers.

5. The email is a little on the text heavy side. Combined with the linear design, this makes the email quite long and less enticing to read than it could be. The first few paragraphs of each article have been included – but that doesn’t necessarily give a good overview of the article. Think of the newsletter as a taster – giving a sample of what’s to come. A few lines for each introduction is ample, summarising the article’s content to make it sound intriguing.

6. Images tend to grab the reader’s attention before anything else, so it’s important to place them intelligently. Currently they are all the same size, but you should consider using one larger image to draw attention to the most important article and give the reader a clue where they should look first.

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