Creative Leisure Systems provides a range of stimulating child entertainment products aimed at businesses whose customers often have toddlers with them. The Comfy products are an effective way of keeping restless children busy during the sales process.

A recent email campaign aimed at acquiring new customers and growing brand awareness failed to generate the desired response. So where is CLS going wrong? Are they communicating their products and services as clearly and engagingly as they could be?

Current design

The first impression is that there are too many messages – it needs one clear single benefit that reflects a need their customers have.

1. The header maintains a strong brand identity and inclusion of site navigation is a helpful tool for getting readers to click through. However, as this is an acquisitional eshot aimed at just one of your target audiences, it could simply distract them from your core message. The header’s size also means the most important information has been pushed down the page.

2. The general, rhetorical questions are creating dead space in the email. They still don’t clearly explain what products Creative Leisure Systems offer or why the reader should be interested. At this point many readers may not scroll any further, they’ll just give up. You need to get your point across as quickly as possible, so the importance of prominent clear and engaging, benefit-lead copy can’t be overstated.

3. The main purpose of the email is to promote your products – however these are hidden low down the page. Many recipients won’t get this far. They need to be able to glance at the page and understand what they’re looking at.

4. It’s good that you can click on each product image and arrive on the relevant web page, but there’s no call to action or incentive to do this. What’s also missing is information about what these products are and their benefits, not only to the children, but to your target audience. With modern audiences, it’s no longer necessary to include ‘click on the picture for product details’ – most people will know intuitively to do so.

5. Linking to details of your other products with the slightly cryptic sentence: ‘Do we have what your business needs to move forward?’ is too passive. It doesn’t tell readers anything about your other products and so there’s no incentive to click through to the product page.

6. Telling readers which businesses benefit from your products is a great idea – it’s a handy way to show what you’re all about. But this information has been placed in an obscure position, in a very small font so most people will miss it.

7. Your contact details are in the footer, right at the bottom of the page where very few people will notice them. Since there’s no quick way to purchase the products in the email without contacting you, hiding the contact information at the bottom puts another obstacle in the way of making a sale.

Additionally, although not visible here, the subject line you used (‘Children CAN increase sales, if they’re kept busy’) is too long. When writing subject lines bear in mind they should only be around five words long at most. Also, for people who have never heard of Creative Leisure Systems the choice of words here could be too cryptic.

How could it be improved?

Get to the point faster and ensure the newsletter portrays one clear message. Rather than the series of questions, create a powerful and benefit-lead statement. For example: ‘Are your customers’ bored kids costing you sales?’

1. Reduce the size of the header, it can still identify the brand but it won’t dominate the page.

2. When explaining your products and services, keep your copy short and engaging. Be active, direct and avoid the passive voice. Go for an effective opening explanation no more than two lines long: Keeping your customers’ children stimulated gives you more time to make your sale. Comfy’s unique child entertainment products create the ideal family friendly sales spaces.

3. Make sure your products are the main attraction. People respond best to images and pictures are by far the best tool for marketing these products – the design should prioritise them at the top.

4. This is an acquisitional email, so it’s important to make the ability to purchase simple. While it’s not always possible to have ‘Click to buy now’ buttons, you should always include a prominent incentive or call to action of some kind. For example: Find out more – get in touch, with a direct email link and a phone number.

5. Include some vital information on each product – for example its size, age range, cost and an interesting feature. That way the reader can scan the page and doesn’t have to click through for important information that might push them towards a sales enquiry.

6. Mention that the units are available to be delivered and installed, as this is a great selling point and contributes towards making the process of buying as convenient as possible.

7. Relocate the vital information explaining which companies benefit from Comfy products to a clearly visible location near the top – perhaps in a list in the right hand column. Readers can quickly identify what you do and whether it’s relevant to them.

8. If you’re going to promote your other products, be descriptive and list them by name. A named product is far more likely to catch a reader’s attention and gain those all-important clickthroughs.

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