Email may be the grandfather of all digital marketing techniques, but that doesn’t mean that it is going out of style anytime soon. In fact, email marketing is still one of the most effective ways of reaching out to leads and potential customers or clients—if you know how to create the perfect marketing email. So, what exactly do your emails need in order to be anatomically perfect?

A Deal

Not every marketing email you send out has to include a deal. The best ones certainly should. Why is it so important? Because most consumers don’t want just an update about your business. They want a good reason to spend their money on your product or service. Getting a percentage or number of dollars off of a purchase is a very good reason to spend their money on a product or service that might have been too expensive previously.

Which should you offer: a dollars off or a percentage off deal? The numbers suggest that a percentage off deal is the better bet. Consumers are nearly 40% more likely to click on an email that offers a percentage off deal and those emails are nearly 50% more likely to lead to a conversion than emails that offer a dollars off deal. While percentage off sounds like a better deal to the consumer, it is usually a better deal for your business.

Either way, whatever kind of deal you offer, you are going to want to offer one. They make your marketing email more attractive and more effective, so even if the deal is small, make sure it exists.

An Awesome Subject Line

How are you going to get someone to click on your email? By making sure you have an awesome, informative, actionable subject line. It should also be short. In between six and ten words is the sweet spot when it comes to email subject lines.

So, what exactly constitutes an awesome subject line? First, informative. It should clearly communicate what the email is about. If a consumer doesn’t immediately understand who the email is from and what that email is about, they are far more likely to just delete than they are to click into it and see what it is. Why? Because most people are already bombarded by hundreds of emails, all the time. They don’t have the time to investigate every dubious email.

Second, they should be actionable. Including your deal in the subject line is always a great idea. It encourages the consumer to click and see what exactly that deal is all about. If they were looking to buy one of your products or services anyway, and now discover that they have a coupon code, that is an extremely actionable email.

Services like MailChimp offer ways to A/B Split test your email subject lines, helping you to maximize their effectiveness.

The Perfect Delivery Time

Does when you send your emails out really matter? It actually does. There is a time of day that your target demographic is more likely to first, see your email before it is buried by the hundreds of others they are receiving, and second, be able to act on it before being distracted by something else. The perfect delivery time is going to vary depending on your demographic, but here is a general example that illustrates the point:

The best time to send an email targeted towards a stay at home mother might be at about nine in the morning. This is after their children are off to school but usually before they start doing housework. This would not, however, be a good time to send an email targeted towards a young professional, who would probably be just arriving at work and therefore would not have time to check or act on emails.

Great Body

The body of your email needs to be highly relevant to the receiver. It should also be visual and short. Remember that the majority of emails today are checked on smartphones and tablets—not on desktops or laptops. If the email is too large or too long, it’s going to be deleted, rather than read and interacted with. The more personalized your email can be, the better. This is easy for subscribers that have provided lots of information to you about themselves and what kinds of topics, services, or products they might be interested in. Providing your subscribers with an opportunity to tell you want content they are and are not interested in is a great way to stave off unsubscribes.