How to write a beautiful letter?
It seems that writing letters to the other half is the lot of the most desperate romantics. Psychologists disagree. Letters are a great tool to build trust, become closer and create a shared reality. Even if your relationship is many years old. Larissa Parfentieva, author of “A Year for Two,” suggests writing letters to each other every month. Here are ten ideas of what they could be about.
The brightest day with you
What was the happiest day you spent together. What was it memorable to you? What was going on? What emotions did you experience? It doesn’t have to be an eventful day. Maybe you lay from morning till night in a cuddle, watching soap operas, talking and laughing. Your partner may not even realize that it was that day that you experienced real joy. All the more surprising would be your letter to him.
Our future perfect date
How do you imagine the perfect date? What are you doing? What location? What do you talk about? How do you behave toward each other? Maybe you want to do a trek together to reboot properly. Or go to an opera where you hold hands quietly and then jokingly sing parts from the opera in two voices. Describe it all in a letter – and who knows, maybe it will all come true very soon.
The day we first saw each other
Do you remember the day you met? Could you have thought then that you would be in a romantic relationship? Think back to that day in detail. How were you dressed? What did you say? How did you spend your time? What were you laughing about? What did you think of when you first saw that person? Recreate that day in all its colors.
Be There: A Letter About Your Experiences
To create a trusting and warm relationship, you must not be afraid to show your vulnerability. In a letter, share what difficulties and worries you are experiencing right now. Tell how you are struggling and how you can be supported in difficult situations (in your career, relationships and at home).
Thank You Letter
Write what you are grateful to your loved one for. Recall what you learned because of him or her. How have you and your life changed since he or she came along? What new feelings and emotions have you discovered? Maybe you are grateful for something and your loved one doesn’t even know it. It’s time to say thank you.
A fact you don’t know about me
There will always be episodes and stories that you’ve never told your significant other. Recall a funny incident or, on the contrary, a strange secret that you did not share. Tell a secret to become even closer to your loved one.
The best vacation together
Some memories you want to leave in your head and scroll to infinity. What is your vacation together was unforgettable? And not necessarily it was something bright and impressive. Perhaps the one you remember most was when you were sick one day on vacation, and your partner was carefully turning over a cold towel on your forehead.
The day we laughed until we cried
Laughter is an indicator that you and your companion are on the same page. Think back to the last time you laughed until you cried together. Maybe you found a funny meme, watched a comedy, standup, or pranked each other. Tell us about it in a letter.
Crazy thing I want to do
What hidden desires, fantasies do you have? What rebellious acts do you dream of doing? Maybe you want to skydive, change your name, live in a cabin in the woods, or master the Japanese art of shibari? Does your partner knows about your desire? Maybe your desires are the same and it’s time to fulfill long-held dreams to make room for new ones.
Letter “If you get sad.”
Write anything that can cheer your partner up. Make a list of why he’s good, what situations you felt proud of him in, what qualities you especially appreciate in him. Think of a funny incident or just write a funny compliment. He will always be able to open this letter and read it in moments of decline.
For even more ideas for letters to each other, love lists, and discussion questions, look for the Year for Two notebook
Email design: Top 8 tips for creating the perfect letter
In the pursuit of creativity and unique design, don’t forget the main purpose of promotional emails – achieving conversion goals. No brand just wants pretty newsletters. Keeping this simple truth in mind, you can create the right letter design. Our article will tell you how to be persuasive without losing aesthetic appeal in any letter.
So, let’s start with the top recommendation on our list. You can create an email that is perfect in terms of design, add interesting interactivity and write catchy text. But what is the point of sending an email if it is displayed correctly only on one type of device with a certain screen size and only in a certain email client? Ignoring the importance of responsive design can make all your work go to waste.
The Stripo editor allows you to hide some elements of an email on mobile devices while hiding other elements on desktops. This means that you can choose which elements will only show up on mobile gadgets and which will only show up on PCs.
Of course, the height of the letter is limitless. You can use as many lines as you need to display all the content you want. But it’s worth remembering: the longer the email, the less likely it is to be read to the end.
The total height of a web page is 960 px, and this is usually not enough to provide all the information users need to get across via the email channel. Alas, there is no escaping scrolling. Usually the average length of emails is about 1500-2000 px. This is enough to post content and it is not difficult for users to make 1-2 scrolls. Also keep in mind that on mobile devices, due to block rearrangement, the length of the email template may increase dramatically.
Important note: Many email clients like Outlook, Apple Mail, Thunderbird have a preview window with a limited size – 600 px wide and 300-500 px high. They do not display a thumbnail of the whole email but they do grab the top margin with the appropriate size of the preview window. So you should make sure that the first 300-500 px contain important and engaging information that will interest the user to read it to the end.
No need to rant about the importance of low weight emails – even in our modern world, a lot of people face the problem of poor Internet connection.
That doesn’t mean you should only send simple, boring emails. Just do picture compression.
I’d also like to point out that the weight of the code for full display in the Gmail client should not exceed 102 KB, and this is worth adhering to.
It was already mentioned in the article above that the main goal of email marketing campaigns is to convince your customers to take a targeted action: buy a product, register for an event, make a charitable donation, etc., etc. This goal can be achieved with a clear and compelling call to action in your newsletter:
- Choosing the right button color. We know that all email elements should complement each other, so you should stick to your chosen color scheme. BUT, in the case of the CTA button – you can play around;
- choosing the right shape. Make your call to action buttons square, rounded, oval – all at your discretion. According to numerous studies, the shape of these buttons is absolutely irrelevant;
- Choosing the right type of buttons: shaded, CSS-animated, with arrows, bold text in email digests, with fake triggers, with the addition of pictures in the buttons.
So many ways to make buttons attractive! Don’t be afraid to use any of the ideas listed.
You can entertain your target audience through a variety of interactivity. Gamification is one of the most well-known ways to use AMP technology for emails today. And yes, it doesn’t require any layout skills in the Stripo editor.
So what can you do with AMP technology?
- Running quizzes.
- Placing several banners on one screen (so called carousel).
- Real time data delivery – it’s very important to show the latest information to your users in your branded digests, welcome messages, etc.
- Updating triggers with email address confirmation – why not let users finish registering and see the result of that action in the same email?
- Allowing customers to select items in emails.
- Making appointments directly in emails.
- Collecting feedback.
Sounds fun, and it can increase conversions, doesn’t it?
Just imagine, 285 million people around the world have vision problems, even when they wear glasses. That’s equal to more than half the population of the European Union and 87% of the population of the United States.
Did you know that people with blindness and vision problems use so-called screen readers (VoiceOver for Mac, Microsoft Narrator for Windows, etc.) when they want to read a letter?
So what do you need to do to help this audience experience the perfection of your newsletters?
Let’s start small. Just follow the rules below:
- The font size should be at least 14px, but 16px is preferable for a normal reading experience;
- avoid using green and red as contrasting colors. For example, don’t apply green to text on a red background, and vice versa. The same goes for colors that are confused by people with colorblindness of various forms;
- never use green buttons on red pictures and vice versa, otherwise some recipients simply won’t notice them;
- always put the name of the clothing color in brackets – people may not be good at distinguishing colors, but may know that red looks good on them;
- Make link text bold;.
- subject lines should be short and descriptive. In other words, a clear subject line reflects the general idea of the letter;
- it is worth using header elements of type and
in the HTML code. Tags , will take precedence over plain text and will be read by the reader first.
If you have any difficulties in the process of creating the letters that meet all these requirements, you can always contact the specialists of Stripo at the official Facebook page. We are happy to help you create newsletters with love and care for all people.
Don’t forget to test the emails before sending them to your users.
Yes, you’ve put your heart and soul into the newsletter. Yes, it looks perfect. But it’s not hard to check it at the very end.
Especially when a good editor has a special button with this function. Click it and make sure that the letter is super-duper.
Most of the time, companies need to send very similar emails talking about discounts, new collections, registration information, password changes, etc. With a large collection of ready-to-send templates like those in Stripo, you can edit the letter to suit you in literally a couple of minutes – change the pictures, description, price – just do whatever your imagination and sales plan allows. Then export to your ESP and email clients and let the world see your adaptive, attractive and effective newsletters.
