Specific Guidelines for Marketing Emails

Writing for emails is all about delivering a message quickly and spurring readers to action. Your email will be competing for attention with hundreds of other emails that the recipient receives each day. Be respectful of your recipients’ time – and set your email up for success – by making it clear, simple and easy to act on. Your reader should be able to read the email, understand its purpose and engage with the call to action within 8-12 seconds of opening it.

Subject lines

• Strive for a character length of 40-50 characters - short enough to capture attention, but long enough to convey the main message.
• Limit use of all caps, special characters, emoji or punctuation, as these can trigger recipients’ spam filters and impact deliverability of your email.
• Use sentence case (capitalize the first letter of first word).

Preview text

• Preview text should generally be 40-100 characters. The longer it is, the higher risk of a recipient’s email client not displaying the entire text.
• Aim to include compelling information that encourages recipients to open the email. This text could summarize the content, spark curiosity with a teaser or preview your call to action.
• Use sentence case (capitalize the first letter of the first word).

Headings and subheadings

• Use headings and subheadings to break up body copy and make it easy to skim. The most engaging subheadings are descriptive (summarizing what you’ll cover in the copy below) or questioning (asking a question that you’ll answer in the copy below).
• Use sentence case (capitalize the first letter of the first word).

Body copy

• Keep sentences short and choose simple, plain language where possible.
• Use bulleted lists to make body copy easy to skim and keep list items brief (one line per bullet).
• Avoid passive voice and repetition.
• Keep punctuation simple, being thoughtful about how often you use question marks, exclamation points and ellipses.
• Avoid the use of asterisks and footnotes where possible.

Effective calls to action

• All emails should have at least one call to action. Avoid sending emails for purely informational purposes, or to give notice that a future, more actionable email is coming.
• Good calls to action give the reader a way to keep exploring or take quick action from their computer:
  • Links to fglife.com or one of our microsites
  • Links to trusted outside websites, such as industry associations
  • Requests to take an immediate, non-time-consuming action (fill out a brief survey, watch a short video, register for a webinar)
• Less effective calls to action lead readers to dead-end content, are complex, time-consuming or require action outside of their computer:
  • Links to view PDFs of marketing materials
  • Links to view PPT presentations
  • Requests to take multi-step or time-consuming actions (watch a long video, make a phone call, do something involving several steps or that will take a long time)
• The number of calls to action will vary based on the length and purpose of the email, but in general it’s best to have one primary call to action per email, to keep the message clear and avoid overwhelming recipients.
• Any secondary calls to action should support the primary one - not pull reader attention away from it.

Formatting calls to action

• If you include multiple calls to action, make sure they are clearly differentiated in terms of priority. For example, your primary CTA could be in a button directly near your body copy, while secondary CTAs might appear as text links or be included at the bottom of the email after the main content.
• When the call to action is to view a video, article or other piece of content, consider including a thumbnail image to generate interest.
• When using call to action buttons:
  • Strive for short text within your button, generally 2-5 words (Read more, Get the guide, Check rates, Register now, etc.)
  • Avoid using long phrases that might wrap onto multiple lines, as these can be difficult to read on mobile devices where screen space is limited.
  • It's not necessary to introduce the button with lead-in text (such as “click the button below for more details”).

Writing Effective Emails

Writing an effective marketing email starts with identifying your audience. The more you understand about where your readers are coming from, the more you’ll be able to tailor your message directly for them:

• How familiar are they with F&G and our products?
• Are they expecting to hear from us about this topic?
• Do they have any existing feelings or concerns about the topic?
• What reason do they have to care about the message you are sending?
• Will they understand any industry terms or acronyms you use?

Next, plan your message. The Know-Feel-Do method can be helpful in planning out your email before you begin writing:

• What do you want your audience to know after reading the email?
• How do you want your audience to feel after reading the email?
• What do you want your audience to do after reading the email?

Once you have this listed out, consider how you’ll translate these messages into the framework of your marketing email. What you want readers to know will form your header, subheaders and body copy. What you want them to feel is great to incorporate into your subject line and preheader text, as it is compelling and drives people to open your email. And what you want readers to do will be come your calls to action.

Possible Color Themes