Are your marketing emails predictable? Does the new one look just like the last one? When’s the last time you experimented?
The probable answer is that there is a certain sameness to your emails. Why should you be different? I view dozens of marketing emails each week and the most depressing thing is that they all look the same. But don’t change for me; change for yourself.
There are probably two factors holding you back from experimenting: your data shows steady improvement and, despite knowing there are no authorities in email marketing, you are following all the 
advice you’ve received about design.
Open an email and you’ll see the header, a subheading, an image, a call to action, maybe another subheading and another image. There will be a bit of copy by each image. It’s the epitome of dull. No wonder many subscribers close emails without action.
Being different is like a cool wind. It will make the reader take notice, especially if it is apparent but subtle. A recent one worked on me yet it took me a little while to realise what was so shocking. Then I got it; there were no subheadings. Further, there was more copy than received wisdom suggests is optimum.
We are all used to redundant subheadings. There’s an image, and the subheading merely describes what it shows. It’s pointless repetition and a waste of a space. If there’s no point to it, delete it.
The clever bit with the marketing email was that the image grabbed the attention. It was a new product, one that was a step up. Anyone on the email marketing list of the company would be interested in learning more. Most of us might have had a click-through to further information, but not this company.
The selling points, and there were a number, were all described in the copy. The lack of a subheading suggested to me that the copy was worth reading. And I was right.
The company were being different for a reason. They ignored the ‘rules’ of email marketing and came up with a cracking campaign design. Question everything, especially what you know instinctively.
