It’s rare I receive an email newsletter that I pay close attention to, but the team at Returnity sent out a great one this morning, which perfectly highlights the points they were trying to get across regarding how visitors read your web and email content.

Heat mapping studies provide great insight into how people consume web content, presenting critical applications to how emails and web pages are designed. We have reviewed several studies and summarised the key findings for you.

General findings

• People don’t read, they scan - so use bullet points, short sentences and bold text
• People rarely scroll - therefore put important copy and calls to action above the fold
• People only focus on about 35% of email content - so keep the message clear
• Images get a lot of attention - use them effectively

Specific findings for email copy

• Bulleted copy gets more attention than straight copy
• Bold copy causes a typical reader to skip over the 2-3 lines above it.
• People are inclined to skip introductory messages
• Replicating important words can improve response
• Immediate calls to action often produce higher response rates, e.g. ‘Sign up today’
• A prominent call to action at the bottom of the email often guides the reader’s eye for the entire email
• Headlines over 50 characters in the email body should wrap on two lines with action words either at the beginning or end
• The first word in every headline and paragraph has vastly more impact and influence over response rates than any other words in the headline, sentence or paragraph.

This is the first email newsletter I’ve recieved from Returnity since I subscribed, but if you’d like to subscribe and catch some useful tips, you can subscribe here.