Marketing Email Pattern #3: The Single Focus

Marketing Email Pattern #3: The Single Focus:m Business 2 Community by Amanda Gagnon

In marketing, there’s a continual, never-ceasing fight to be visible. To catch attention, hold it, and draw prospects in. To be the business that stands out, that gets remembered.
When marketing with email (always a good choice), you need to stand out. And when it comes to standing out, presentation is everything. So let’s talk about the presentation of your content.
We’ve talked about the pick-and-choose pattern, and there are definitely times and places to use it. Other times, however, you may want to use:

The Single-Focus Pattern

As we’ve mentioned before, at the recent Women In Business Conference, each speaker presented just one central idea. This pattern made it super-simple for attendees to take away exactly the message the speakers intended.
This same idea translates nicely to your emails. If there is something you consider highly important for your readers to see, whether it’s a new product you’re offering, an award you’ve won or a survey you want them to take, dedicate your entire message to that one idea.

How to Do This In Your Emails

To keep the message singly focused, it goes without saying that you won’t include any other content (other than your user-friendly basics).
Beyond that, though, you can use the design of the email to point to your single idea with the following tips:

• If you use ads, keep them neatly in the sidebar or footer.
• If it makes sense, illustrate with a photo – then you can eliminate a thousand words’ worth of clutter
• Use plenty of whitespace (blank space around your content, no matter what color your background) to help it stand out.
• Make the call to action big, bold or both.

For Example

Crumbs Bake Shop knows that all they have to do to make sales off this email is show an image of a Christmas cupcake, with high enough resolution to show the texture of the icing and candy crunch.

When Would You Use This Pattern?

You might select a single-focus pattern for your emails if you:

• Tend to run short on time
• Send frequent emails to the same lists or segments
• Have a very busy readership
• Want your readers’ attention focused on one very important thing

Do You Use This Pattern?

Tell us about how you use it, or link us to the web version of your email!