One of the things that I love about MarketingSherpa is their willingness to share the information that they garner from research, studies, and surveys.  Some of it comes in the form of case studies (which are my favorite).  Sometimes it comes in the form of an interview.  And sometimes it comes from articles written by various members of the staff.

This time I'd like to highlight an article written by MarketingSherpa President Anne Holland that deals with the design of email marketing messages.

The folks at MarketingSherpa took several real-life email marketing messages into the eye-tracking labs to study people's behavior when they get one of these emails.  The eye-tracking system allows the researchers to see where people are looking.  By de-linking all hotlinks in the email, and also recording where people are clicking, a detailed map of interaction unfolds and offers invaluable insight into the ways that people respond to your messages.

Of particular note in their findings:

• People click on images, regardless of whether or not they are product images.  They'll even click on the stock model images that get thrown into the emails.  Make sure your images are linked to something.  And limit the number of non-brand related images in the email - those are huge wastes of valuable clickthrough potential.
• A considerable amount of time is spent looking at the top and right sides of the message.  Make sure your important copy and creative find their way to those portions of the email.
• Links embedded into the middle of paragraphs don't get clicked on often.  MarketingSherpa suggests making your titles and headlines clickable as well.

If you're serious about email marketing or need to inject some renewed zest into an existing email marketing campaign, the massive study MarketingSherpa conducted on that very topic might not be a bad investment.