I get asked what the perfect email template is all the time.
My response? Keep it simple, and keep testing.
And then MailChimp comes along with their giant data science team. They’ve just gone and published their findings on what makes the perfect email template. They have a lot of data to pull from: millions of accounts sending billions of emails (*ahem* including mine, if you’d like to sign up).
I love me some data-driven decision making! Especially from outside the nonprofit space.
Their results? There isn’t any one winning email template, it depends on you and your list.
But there were two key principles:
Keep it simple
Use a basic layout, and keep your copy concise.
Keep testing
MailChimp’s findings also show that the best performing email lists tested constantly. Testing was THE indicator of high performance.
They found the best email lists:
- Use their own data – they didn’t assume what works for everyone else works for them too
- Challenged their assumptions – they didn’t just accept someone else’s best practices as the final truth
- Never stopped testing – successful design was about figuring out what worked for THEM and refining it.
Check out the full MailChimp blog post here.
Testing is so important*. Still looking for a New Year’s resolution? Resolve to test everything, all the time.
*Here’s my testing how-to guide to get you started.
