The most effective subject lines are 5 words or less and state the value this email brings to the recipient. Tricks and misleading statements don’t work well.

Beautifully designed hero images with headlines and subhead text perform best. They are visually captivating and confirm that this is a quality piece of content worth reading, not spam.

Stick with vertical stacked layouts. These respond the best in various mobile device browsers and ensure you email looks the same everywhere.

Repeating the headline again in plain text is important to help the email deliver the full content message, pass spam filters, and reinforce the main message since the header image may not be fully visible to the viewer as they scroll down the page.

Short, well-written text is essential to deliver your valuable message. It’s also important to include anchor text links to keywords. These text links connect to deeper information about that item and direct readers either to your own site or to another trusted resource. Users appreciate when you put their experience before your need to sell.

Pull quotes or call-outs help you reinforce key takeaways from the email and help the reader remember critical messages. They also add design sophistication to the content.

Put a spotlight on key statistics to engage the analytical side of the brain. Statistics add credibility to your email and validate the value you are bringing to the recipient.

Give the recipient a reason to click through to your website. After they get there, they are more likely to browse other content and spend more time engaging with your brand. More time = more sales.

Offering more than one call-to-action increases the likelihood of engagement from the recipient. People like choices. If you give them several ways to engage, they often pick more than one! The more a person engages with your brand, the more likely they will be to develop loyalty to it.

With every email you send, your recipient reevaluates whether or not to remain subscribed. So, every email has to follow email marketing best practices and over-deliver on expectations. When you provide a content-rich experience, subscribers are more likely to remain subscribed.

Footers that include your company name, address, a reminder of how the recipient came to be on your email list, and one-click unsubscribe links are required to pass most spam filters.