Anatomy of a Compelling Email from Dog’s Best Life

We love pets, and so it warms our hearts when we find customers’ pet-related businesses doing great things with their email marketing campaigns.

Take Sara Hansen’s website Dog’s Best Life. Her emails consistently average 50% open rates, thanks in large part to her fun email marketing design and content.

We’ll break down what makes Sara’s emails so cool in hopes to spark some email design inspiration for you.

The Anatomy

Here’s a glimpse of what Sara’s emails look like:


Want to see her full emails? You can check them out here.

The Physiology

The mouth: editor’s note – At the top of every email Sara greets readers and gives them a preview of what’s going to be talked about. She also encourages readers to contact her and links to her social media networks.

The eye: readers’ photos – People like sharing pictures of their pets and looking at pictures of other cats. Just look at I Can Has Cheezburger. Including a section that features a picture of one of her readers’ pets is a great way to engage subscribers.

The nose: relative sponsors – Including ads in your emails is a great way to earn some extra cash. Done the right way, and it’s also helpful to your subscribers. Sara features a site that sells accessories for dogs, which is perfect for her audience.

The ear: readers’ requests – Every email asks readers to submit topics they’d like to see. This shows that Sara cares about creating valuable, relevant content to her subscribers, and providing content they want leads to higher open rates.

The tail: archive access – The end of each email includes a link to the broadcast archive, where subscribers can read previous emails. This is a great option for new subscribers who want to see the tips and topics already covered.

Help From Fido

Her site being what it is, we thought it would be perfect to describe her emails in terms of canine anatomy. Take a look:



What Do You Think?

What do you think is important to include in your newsletters? What do you think is annoying in emails?

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By:
Education Marketing Associate (Crystal Gouldey Moore) on Google

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8 Comments

  1. Sara Hansen

    Love it. Thanks for featuring dogsbestlife.com.

    8/16/2012 9:58 am
  2. Andrew Woo

    how much of an impact does the pre-existing relationship between sender and recipient, along w./ the subject line, impact such a high open rate of 50%?

    8/16/2012 9:58 am
  3. Aaron

    Hi Crystal,

    This is a great post for us because my wife just started a new site branded under her name and she is fun and creative, but is looking for new ways to learn how to engage her followers. Thanks for this post. I sent it to her to help spark some creative ideas on her own writing style.

    Aaron

    8/16/2012 11:08 am
  4. Josh Monen

    Good post. I’m curious to know how much time she spends on her subject lines and if she personalizes her subject lines… With an open rate of 50% I would venture to guess that she knows how to write compelling headlines/subject lines. Thanks for sharing this!

    8/16/2012 11:30 am
  5. Crystal Gouldey

    Sara – Not a problem, we love your site!

    Andrew and Josh – There are certainly a lot of factors that go into open rates. Subject lines are important since they’re the first thing that’s seen. Past emails sent and relationships with the subscribers definitely factor in as well. The best you can do is work on them all: continue to deliver relevant, valuable content subscribers enjoy, test your subject lines to find out what works and even test things like send times.

    Sara’s subject lines actually focus on consistency – “DogsBestLife.com newsletter issue…” is what is working for her.

    And Aaron – I hope your wife does get some creative ideas out of this!

    8/16/2012 2:12 pm
  6. Caren

    Well-I’m a newbie!I was so excited to see this in the AWeber Email Marketing Tips!I’m taking my shop hi-tech. Knowing that this is the way thing’s are going even for the local grooming shop’s. I’m having to learn a lot about the internet and how to utilize it without driving my customer’s nut’s! Thank’s! And Sara WOOF-WOOF!
    Wag’s to all!

    8/16/2012 9:04 pm
  7. Andrew Woo

    Thx Crystal! That was my assumption too, you just gotta work at all aspects of it over time.

    8/19/2012 1:56 pm
  8. Ignite Visibility

    Love the dog tie in. Listen to your audience and look at what subscribers can offer you. Classic!

    8/19/2012 5:19 pm

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