At the end of the day, successful marketers know it takes the right product and the right price targeted to the right audience at the right time. But still, all marketers struggle with the creative elements incorporated in making customers aware of their company, products and services. It is, in effect, the icing on the cake, and fancy icing sells a lot of pretty bland cake.

Relevancy is still the key, but beyond that, certain creative elements can help improve the level of awareness necessary to attract customer interaction. Silverpop's "Email Creative That Works" study underscores the importance of the following best practices:

• Include the company name or brand in the subject line.
• Include both text and image links to attract attention and boost click rates.
• Lifestyle photography attracts consumers and can yield higher click rates.
• There is such a thing as too many options. Silverpop's study found that, past a certain point, the greater the number of links in a message, the lower the click rate.
• Placing the call-to-action above the fold is critical for all marketers, but especially for BtoB companies.
• If you're using the same format over and over again, consider making a switch. Silverpop's study found that BtoB emails in a postcard format had the highest average click rate, whereas BtoC companies had highest average click rates for newsletter formats.