Web visitors spend 74% of their time on the first two screens, just 26% on all remaining screens, according to the Nielsen Norman Group

So once you’ve placed the most important elements above the fold, the next step is to weed out anything that’s pushing those key elements down the page.

Take Hubspot’s marketing blog. Above the fold, we have:

• The HubSpot flag and menu
• Marketing a sales tabs
• Publication date
• A three-line headline
• A two-line byline, including the writer’s Twitter handle
• Sharing buttons
• A busy image without a caption

What we don’t see? A single word of the article itself.

The New York Times app, on the other hand, squeezes a three-line headline, a telling photo, a caption that adds information and four lines of the lead onto the first screen.

So what can you move from the top screen?

• Bylines. Only the writer and the writer’s mother care who wrote the piece.
• Publication dates. “The story date is not worth the substantial screen real estate it occupies,” writes usability expert Jakob Nielsen.
• Categories, tags and sharing buttons. They don’t add helpful information.
• Chrome, or buttons, navigation, menus and other design elements. “Prioritize content over chrome” on mobile, Nielsen counsels.

Because when it comes to making the web page tops, what you take off the first screen is as important as what you put in.

Bottom line: Display more content at the top.

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4,300%.

That’s the average ROI on email marketing, according to the Direct Marketing Association.¹ And that, says Inc., is a better return than for any other marketing channel.²

It’s been more than 45 years since Ray Tomlinson sent the first email in 1971.³ It announced the existence of email and told readers how to use the @ symbol in email addresses.

“4,300%. That’s the average ROI on email marketing.”

— Direct Marketing Association

Since then, we’ve seen the emergence of social channels ranging from Facebook to Flickr, from Tumblr to Twitter, and from Yelp to YouTube.

But when it comes to moving the needle on the bottom line, email remains king.

“Email may well be your most productive marketing tool,” says Dan Zarrella. He should know. The HubSpot viral marketing scientist analyzed 9.5 billion MailChimp emails to find out.⁴

Why email?

So why email? E-zines and email marketing are:

1. Popular

More than 3.7 billion people will have email by the end of 2017.⁵ That’s about half of the men, women and children in the world.⁶

These folks prefer email:

• Some 86% of U.S. professionals prefer to use email for business communications.⁷
• More than 60% of working Americans consider email “very important” to their job. That makes email the top digital tool in the American workplace today.⁸
• Sending or receiving email remains Americans’ No. 1 online activity; 85% of U.S. adults use it every day.⁹

“Sending or receiving email remains Americans’ No. 1 online activity. Some 85% of U.S. adults use it every day.”

— Statistica.com

2. Convenient

People can read emails wherever they take their phones — from the barroom to the bathroom. Indeed, people open two-thirds of emails on mobile devices.¹⁰

“People read 42% of emails in the bathroom.”

— Adobe Campaign Survey

Where they read e-zines: Subscribers mostly read their e-zines at home, at work or on their commutes, according to Kim Flaherty, Amy Schade and Jakob Nielsen, authors of Marketing Email and Newsletter Design to Increase Conversion and Loyalty. However, 7% read their e-zines in the bathroom.

Where they read emails: As for general email consumption … outside of work, Americans most commonly check their email:¹¹

• While watching TV (70%)
• From bed (52%)
• On vacation (50%)
• While on the phone (43%)
• From the bathroom (42%)
• While driving (18%)

3. Viral

If your email readers like what they see, they forward the message to an average of 11 people, according to the Direct Marketing Association.

“Email is the No. 1 social channel for sharing.”

— Chadwick Martin Bailey

That makes email the No. 1 social channel for sharing, according to Chadwick Martin Bailey.¹² Eighty-six percent of people surveyed use email for sharing; 62% use it most often.

4. Cheap

Emailing a company’s own list costs only $1 a sale, according to Forrester Research. That compares with $20 a sale using snail mail.

5. Effective

Finally, email has a 66% conversion rate. That’s the highest of any channel, including social media, direct mail and more.¹³

“Email has a 66% conversion rate. That’s the highest of any channel, including social media, direct mail and more.”

— Data & Marketing Association

And let’s not forget that 4,300% ROI.

But remember: That return is an opportunity — not a promise. And taking advantage of that opportunity isn’t easy. Email has some built-in problems that make it easy to annoy, rather than convert, subscribers.

Overcome the obstacles to reaching readers via email.

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Source:

^[1] “Email Marketing: How To Push Send And Grow Your Business,” Copyblogger,

^[2] Inc. Staff, “Writing an E-Newsletter that Gets Results,” Inc., July 30, 2010.

^[3] Heinz Tschabitscher, “The First Email Message: Who sent it and when?” Lifewire, Oct. 11, 2017

^[4] Dan Zarrella, “The Science of Email Marketing,” HubSpot, Feb. 9, 2011

^[5] Email Statistics Report, 2017-2021 (PDF), The Radicati Group, February 2017

^[6] World Population Clock, Worldometers.info

^[7] Mimi An, “Native Advertising Rises As Consumers Opt Out,” HubSpot Research, Feb. 8, 2016

^[8] Kristen Purcell and Lee Rainie, “Technology’s Impact on Workers,” Pew Research Center of Internet and Technology, Dec. 30, 2014

^[9] “Most popular daily online activities of adult internet users in the United States as of February 2017,” Statistica.com

^[10] Greg Sterling, “Majority of Emails Opened on Apple Devices,” Marketing Land, Jan. 28, 2015

^[11] Kristin Naragon, “Subject: Email, We Just Can’t Get Enough,” Adobe blog, Aug. 26, 2015

^[12] Josh Mendelsohn and Jeff McKenna, “Social Sharing Research Report: How, Why, and What Content People Share Online” (PDF), Chadwick Martin Bailey, September 2010

^[13] Casey Hampsey, “Saturday Stat Series: The Influence of Email Marketing Messages,” Data & Marketing Association, Aug. 3, 2013

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