The beginning of a new year signals the time for new email campaigns. But what about your email design – is it optimized to give you the best response rate possible?

Email design is part science and part marketing savvy, but there are a number of best practices to you can employ to ensure maximum results. Let’s start with one of the most important items – the subject line. There is an art to writing compelling subject lines that get peoples’ attention. Start by limiting the number of characters to less than 50 (about six words). Avoid spammy words like “free,” “act now,” “open,” and “reminder.” Avoid capital letters and exclamation points too.

Once you’ve got a great subject line it’s time to turn your attention to the layout and copy. How does your email communicate visually? Is it simple, yet compelling? Is your call to action located prominently toward the top of the email and definitely above the fold? Keep in mind that, according to MarketingSherpa’s Email Marketing Benchmark Report, only 33% of email recipients have images turned on by default, and more than 80% of business people use preview panes. So, it’s vitally important to design your email to be readable and visually appealing even without images, and take into consideration how it’s going to display in a preview pane.

And when it comes to copy, less is definitely more. It’s well known that people tend to skim rather than read content in detail, so make sure that your message is well crafted and succinct. Use subheads, bullets and paragraphs to set off your most important points.

Here are a few other layout best practices to consider:

• Keep the width of your design within 600px
• Limit the number of fonts you use
• Use color sparingly for emphasis

One other important thing to consider when designing emails is mobile devices. A recent blog post by HubSpot states that 70 million U.S. consumers access their email via a mobile device, and 43% of them check email on it four or more times a day – so if you aren’t optimizing your emails for mobile it’s time to start thinking about it. Limit your email file sizes to 20k or smaller to support fast loading. You’ll also want to use a larger font size (at least 13 point), and increase the size and padding of text links to at least 10 to 15 pixels.

Lastly, once you’ve got a compelling email with a fully thought out design, it’s time to test it across various web clients and mobile devices to ensure it displays properly. There are a number of services that make this easy, including Litmus, CampaignMonitor, Email on Acid, and MailChimp.

Want help optimizing your emails or filling your lead generation pipeline? Turn to Launch Marketing. We’ve got the expertise you need to make your emails really perform.

The Millennial Generation is as large as the Baby Boomer Generation and nearly three times as large as the generation before it, Generation X. In fact, within the next 15 years half of the population will be 21 or younger.

Millennials are typically classified as those born between 1980 and 2000, and are characterized by several traits – many of which involve their technology habits. Millennials:

• Are digital natives, never knowing a time without computers
• Believe that technology should be free and available 24/7
• Never let their cell phones leave their sight (83% of them sleep with their cell phones)
• Are the most ethnically and racially diverse generation
• Maintain an optimistic outlook despite a lackluster economic future

How does this affect B2B marketing? The oldest Millennials turn 32 this year, and as more and more Baby Boomers reach retirement they are being replaced by those in younger generations. Since Gen X is so much smaller than the Baby Boomer generation, this means that there are going to be decision-making managerial positions opening up for Millennials.

Knowing the best ways to reach and effectively communicate with Millennials will be key, especially as more of them enter the workforce. Millennials have grown up receiving individual attention, so they expect to receive targeted communication. And they want to get it immediately – Millennials are used to instant gratification. If they ask a question they expect to receive an answer, or at least an acknowledgement of their concern immediately. This is why many Millennials prefer to communicate electronically.

Millennials also expect marketers to adapt to their technology usage. Everything sent to them should be smartphone (especially iPhone) compatible.  They are adept at finding information, particularly through the Internet, so expect them to comparison shop before making an important purchasing decision.

This generation is also on track to become the most highly educated generation in history. Businesses have an opportunity to cater to this generation’s hunger for learning by providing webinars, training sessions and other educational offerings.

So don’t think that just because they are still relatively new to the business world that Millennials don’t have an impact on B2B marketing. Your next prospect (or hire) just may be one.