This is part 5 in a series about getting maximum ROI from your email newsletter and email marketing efforts. The first post, Key Elements for Maximum Email Newsletter ROI - Email Newsletter, Email Marketing Podcast Part 1 focused on knowing what device a newsletter will first be opened. Part 2 dealt with color and content completeness. Part 3 started the discussion of patterns followed by successful email newsletters. That discussion was continued through Part 3a, Part 3b and part 3c.
Part 4 dealt with measuring your audience’s response to your newsletter and here we start the second podcast in the series and answer "If links are important -- the next question is -- how many of them should I have? (You said odd numbers are better.)"
Again, this is something from cognitive science and psycholinguistics that is directly applicable to marketing materials. Give people a binary decision path -- Yes/No, LinkA/LinkB -- and they'll essentially stop. Believe it or not, two links is too much information for most people to deal with.
But, three links? That's fine. They can literally chose the middle road. This is something I talk about when I explain "Priming", what magicians call "Forcing". You can design a page or newsletter so that people will chose the link you want them to follow just about every time and not realize they're doing it.
Once you get beyond three you start seeing Likert style responses. Likert and biasing responses are things researchers and questionnaire designers are very familiar with. You can basically force responses by the number of options you offer and their placement. Even numbers of options tend to be excellent for forcing results, odd numbers are good for getting real responses.
Please contact NextStage for information regarding presentations and trainings on this and other topics.
Links for this post:
- How to Design an E-Mail Newsletter to Maximize Your ROI: Part 1
- How to Design an E-Mail Newsletter to Maximize Your ROI: Part 2
- Email Newsletters, Anyone?
- Make sure your email newsletter is working
- SEND Glands Blog arc
- Know How Someone Is Thinking in 10 Seconds or Less Half-day training at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, 13 June 08
- New Communications Forum 2008, 22-25 April 08 at The Vineyard Creek Inn & Spa, Sonoma County CA
- San Francisco Emetrics Marketing Optimzation Summit, 4-7 May 08
- International Communication Association's Communicating for Social Impact, the 58th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association at Le Centre Sheraton Hotel, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, May 22-26, 2008
- SUNY Marketing Professionals Conference at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC, 11-13 June 08
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