>>CHALLENGE
Since October 2020, our agency has supported longtime client ITC Holdings Corp.’s quarterly marketing e-newsletter, the Transmission Line, to help keep their employees and Michigan stakeholders informed on relevant topics. Since then, we have:
- Improved deliverability rates by decreasing bounce rates and maintaining healthy audience lists.
- Incorporated subtle but impactful optimizations like strategic hyperlinking and the use of more active language to help increase website visits.
- Increased open rates through A/B testing and retargeting campaigns.
Despite continual progress, there was still room for improvement in one crucial area: audience engagement.
When improvements have already been made and the subject matter must remain the same, how does one increase e-newsletter click rates and other engagement metrics more effectively? In this case, the answer was simple: a template refresh.
>> APPROACH
We targeted which areas of the e-newsletter template to improve, and which elements should stay consistent using a mix of industry best practices and data from previous newsletter campaigns. Our focus areas included:
Intentional Imagery. The previous template dedicated a lot of space to header imagery at the top of the newsletter. Not only did this take up valuable digital real estate, but popular hyperlinks throughout the header image were clicked often, which drew readers away from the newsletter’s content and reduced the chances of them returning which damaged other potential engagement metrics.
We replaced the header image with a more vibrant, smaller version, which only linked strategically to ITC’s Transmission Line webpage, an important informational page that is accessible throughout additional subtopics within the newsletter. Its size also now provides readers with a more comprehensive preview of the rest of the newsletter’s content.
USE THE SLIDER TO SEE THE OPTIMIZATIONS IN ACTION
The imagery within the body of the newsletter was also transformed. In addition to using stock images and story-specific photos as we had in the past, we also worked with ITC’s design team to create visually appealing graphics and incorporate historically higher performing photos, like professional headshots.
Shortened Scrolling. Taking up too much space with a header image is just the tip of the engagement iceberg. It is common across all industries for content at the top of an e-newsletter to somewhat outperform the rest of the content (partially because it is intentionally positioned there as the most important story); however, when the content at the top of the piece performs too well, that’s a direct indicator that the content at the top is either distracting the reader from returning back to the e-newsletter or that they deem the email too long to finish reading.
Because the overall length of an e-newsletter has a massive influence on click rates and other engagement metrics, one of the biggest goals was to decrease the word count by more than 50% compared to the previous e-newsletter.
Word count wasn’t the only approach to reducing readers’ scrolls – we completely reformatted the body of the newsletter, making it the largest overhaul of the entire campaign. Previously, sub-topic content blocks’ imagery and copy were stacked on top of one another. The new template’s sub-topics are still vertically stacked, but photos and copy are now placed side-by-side. These content blocks are also now accompanied by buttons, which provide an additional touch point to drive the reader to the website or third-party link.
USE THE SLIDER TO SEE THE OPTIMIZATIONS IN ACTION
Catchy, Condensed Copy. While it is common for content in the body of the newsletter to appeal to more niche members of the audience and generate less overall engagement, metrics from previous campaigns indicated that the length of these subtopics needed to be shortened to generate more engagement.
One of the goals of this e-newsletter is to drive more quality website visits. We decided to move toward short, compelling copy to provide just enough information to leave the reader wanting more and encourage them to click to read more. Employing a shorter copy approach also supported the scroll reduction goal – the shorter an email is, the more digestible and approachable it appears to the reader.
USE THE SLIDER TO SEE THE OPTIMIZATIONS IN ACTION
>>RESULTS
In comparison to ITC’s previous newsletter, the refreshed template generated:
Increased click-through rate (CTR) across nearly all audience segments. The most significant CTR increase jumped from 7.3% to 25.6%
Drastic click-to-open rate (CTOR) increases across more than half of the audience segments. One segment experienced a CTOR increase from 16% to 66.7%)
Heightened engagement across all e-newsletter audience segments in content sections beyond the top portion of the newsletter
