Email Marketing

Email marketing is growing in its use as an effective marketing tool.

Direct marketing through email is much more cost effective than snail-mail, and enables the sender to include various forms of attention-grabbing media- video, graphics, infographics and links to websites or presentations.

Knowing what technology to use in your email design is as important as the message or offer.

RLS Group custom-designed HTML email

Tips When Designing HTML Emails

1. Emails should be 600 – 800 pixels max width.
2. Images will probably be blocked – use alt tags
3. Don’t use one single image for your message
4. Use basic, cross-platform fonts like Arial, Verdana, Times Roman and Georgia
5. Don’t use Flash or Javascript
6. Use animated GIFs for motion graphics
7. Use tables (remember your coding standards from 1999?!)
8. Make sure the email is mobile-friendly!

HTML Email Design Best Practices

Use a Content Management System (CMS) to stay organized and use pre-defined building blocks that can easily be reused. They also provide simple communication between databases and emails being sent out, keeping everything on the same page as far as data is concerned. There are many different customizable features on the leading CMS’s.

Design on a grid to keep it balanced, organized, and easy to read.

Keep everything on one page if possible. The more pages an email has, the greater chance it will have of being blocked by spam filters or being accessed on a mobile device.

Use solid colors instead of gradients whenever possible. Gradient images are slow-loading and sometimes won’t display properly in all email clients or webmail interfaces.

Vary your content delivery order with some items appearing before others (to draw attention), while others appear later (after you’ve caught the viewer’s eye). For example, an opt-in form might be delivered early in the body of the message, followed by links at the bottom for additional information.

Include a link to unsubscribe from the email in every issue. This way, people can choose whether or not they wish to receive your emails based on their content and frequency.

Other Best Practices for Email Marketing and Design

• Proofread before sending – check for all images, links, text formatting, and spelling errors!
• Use images sparingly – make sure they are sized correctly and that there is no large number of them that may cause slow loading times.
• Avoid using too many colors, as this can cause eye fatigue.
• Use bold and italics sparingly – be very careful with your use of fonts; choose the right font for the right message!
• Take into account all screen resolutions when designing emails – ask yourself if some content will display correctly or not on smaller screens.

Marketing is about more than just sending the email – think about how you’re going to get people to open it in their inbox first. Ways to entice recipients include making your HTML email look like a personal letter (addressing them by the first name), including an image of something they love, or reminding them why they signed up in the first place. Be sure to also provide links so that readers can easily find your website.

Remember that email design is constantly evolving, so keeping up with the latest email marketing trends will give you an edge over other companies.

Email marketing design should always have one goal in mind: to convey your message or information clearly.

To do that, you need to understand your audience. This guide will give you all of the details about how professional email design functions, why it’s so important for business owners, and how the industry is changing the rules of marketing. You’ll also learn useful techniques for designing emails that are effective, efficient, attractive, engaging, personal—and successful.

This guide is an excellent resource for anyone who needs to send out email blasts regularly—or even just infrequently when there isn’t much time between campaigns.