If your email campaign performance is starting to sag in all the wrong places, here's how you can give it a quick shot of virtual Botox.

If you aren't getting the performance you want from your email marketing dollars, maybe it's time to go the Hollywood-celebrity route and revamp your image with a nip here, a tuck there, and some serious freshening up.

I'm not talking about an entire top-to-toe extreme makeover -- unless your email program is so moribund that it's ready for life support. Instead, today I'll just suggest what you can do in the online equivalent of a few office visits. A shot of virtual Botox instead of a total facelift, if you will.

1. Plump up your inbox appearance.

How you look in the inbox can determine whether your redesigned email gets seen or remains just another face in the crowd. Making your inbox view more informative will tell recipients exactly who you are, what you're doing in their inboxes, and why they should open your email now instead of passing over it, deleting it unopened, or clicking the spam button on it.

How to do it:

• Clarify your "from" line. Make sure it shows your company, newsletter, or brand name -- never an email address or the name of the person who actually sent it. Double-check that it looks the way you expect in multiple email clients and that it looks good no matter how the client tries to display it.
• Write your subject line with bold lipstick. This is not the place for a demure pale pink. State there what your message contains, what you want people to do with it, how long they have to act, or anything else that will pique interest.

2. Get a call-to-action lift.

Sure, everything starts to sag the older you get, and the same is true for the most important information in your email. A good lift for your call to action will move it back where it belongs, up in the top half of your email message, instead of the depths it might have sunk to over the years. But, just moving it up isn't enough.

You need to spell it out clearly, in plain or HTML text instead of behind an image, so that your readers can see it no matter how they read your message: with images on or off; on their desktops, laptops, PDAs, first-generation cellphones, or mail stations; by opening the whole message or reading just a fraction in the preview pane.

3. Reduce your image consumption.

That big lovely image your designers have crafted ever so lovingly looks good on your desktop, or on a printed page, but it will show up as a big blob or worse -- a big red X -- if the link breaks or if your recipients don't view images.

It's the same reason you don't want to trap your call to action behind an image. Even as email has gotten more standardized over the years, users have many more places and options for reading it than ever. So, what looks wonderful on your high-powered desktop running Internet Explorer might be a total disaster on a recipient's aging BlackBerry.

Instead, slim down your image load. Put your most important copy in plain or HTML text, and replace your one big picture with a few smaller ones. Then, allow for the likelihood that some folks still won't see them. Describe the image with a few words of alternate text. These are the words you see instead of images if you view email with images off. Choose these words wisely; they could be intriguing enough to prompt some readers to turn on images or reach mobile readers, who won't see the images until they view your email on a home or office computer.

4. Liposuction your body copy.

Message copy is like body fat. You need some in order to survive, but too much of it is unhealthy.

Take a look at both kinds of copy: standing copy, which is the boilerplate that runs in every message, and fresh copy, which changes from message to message.

Strip your last email broadcast message down to the bare template. (It's not as frightening as standing naked in front of a mirror. Trust me.) Do you really need all of that copy?

Here's the standing copy you should have in each message:

• Link to the online version of your message in its full beauty.
• The unsubscribe link and a few words (five or six max) about how to use it or to update an email address or preferences.
• Contact information: company name, email, web link, street address, telephone number.
• Feedback link.
• The email address used to subscribe to that message.
• Link to your opt-in page for forwardees.

Don't pad this section or over-explain: "Read online" is all you need for the web version. You can package it all neatly in an administrative center and run it in the same place in each message: across the bottom or on the left or right side. Look for clicks to measure whether people are finding it.
 
Next, look at the copy surrounding your current offer. Does every word you choose help to tell your story, affirm your value proposition, or clarify your call to action? If not, pull it.

If your offer hinges on a long list of qualifications, terms, and conditions, summarize the most important ones (minimum purchase, membership required, limited-time offer) and link to the full disclosure at your site.

5. White is the new black.

Sometimes, just changing your outfit can make you look years younger.

So, black is your signature background color? Save it for your website. In email, white is right. Your colors and images will look snappy, and plain black text will leap right off the page whether recipients see your email with images on or off.

If you insist on black -- or blue or lavender or yellow or orange -- that might be all people see if they don't view email with images on.

Wendy Roth is the senior manager of training services for Lyris Technologies.