Email Templates

Categories: social media

We’ve been using GovDelivery as an email publishing platform for a while now. You can find out more about the platform and how we use it in our ‘What is GovDelivery?’ post.

Three months ago (October 2016), we reviewed and updated our email templates to optimise for mobile and accessibility – something we are passionate about continuously reviewing and improving.

The design team took on the challenge.

We researched recommendations made by similar services and found that they used clean layouts and friendly language. Useful resources we came across when developing our templates included MailChimp’s limitations of HTML in email design, and email design guide. GovDelivery also provided email design recommendations.

Our aim was to improve the flow of the original layout in a clean and friendly way and also to improve consistency for readers. The new template has more attention on “call to action” features and more information included in the footer. It’s now easier to see where the emails have been sent from and the other ways readers can get in touch.

We have been monitoring the performance of our emails and wanted to share how the new templates are performing. Has responsive email, a design refresh and making the emails more accessible impacted the performance of this channel?… Sadly, we don’t think so but we’re still really happy with the improvement!

Our growth rate has been consistent over the past 12 months with an average of 1500 new subscriptions per month.

Our average engagement rate for the year is 62.9% and analytics show our engagement rate went slightly higher during October (65.49%) and November (65.22%). This may be due to interest in the new templates or may be related to an increase in publishing of data including the period after the EU Referendum. The Autumn Statement was also in November; this may have increased interest in our data publications. December 2016 saw content engagement return to 62.89%.

If you’d like to receive the latest stats and updates, sign up to email alerts on our website.