Analytics make it simple to analyze your email marketing’s effectiveness, from hard and soft bounces to click-through rates and conversion. But what do you do with that information, and how to you improve if your campaigns are below the industry average?

Here are a few benchmarks broken down by industry, courtesy of MailChimp:

“If I had more time, I would have written a shorter letter.” The old quote—attributed at times to Winston Churchill—says it all. Concise writing is difficult. But it’s important—not just as a matter of good writing, but for effective marketing.

In 2013, a human being’s average attention span was calculated at 8 seconds. That was down from 12 seconds in 2000. A goldfish’s attention span? 9 seconds. That’s right, we have shorter attention spans than goldfish.

Let’s face it. Even the most well thought out strategy still requires a lot of time in the execution phase to ensure your posts will attract the right readers. Here’s a quick blogging checklist for crossing and dotting all necessary letters before hitting publish:

Topic:

• Is created with a target persona in mind – unless yours is a personal blog, it really shouldn’t be a place to freestyle and write about any topics that come to mind. What matters to your buyer personas?
• Helps solve a problem – by doing your homework up front and creating a persona, you know what your prospects’ pain points are. How can you help alleviate them through relevant blog posts?