Email newsletters can be an effective way to communicate with your customers. It’s an ideal way to keep in touch and update your customers on new services, product announcements and helpful information.
It’s important that any email campaign is carefully thought out starting with the design and coding of the HTML email newsletter.
Design and Coding
HTML newsletters must be coded in table based format – in the case of websites coding has moved away from tables to HTML and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), however email clients (the platforms/software used to view email newsletters) rely on table based coding with inline styling.
HTML email has the reputation (often well deserved) for being a difficult design medium and much like having to code websites to be viewed across the many different browsers (and browser versions) on PC and MAC, HTML email suffers from the same problems across email clients.
In some ways, coding HTML email has become easier — several email software providers, such as Google Mail, have improved their support for CSS. At the same time, Outlook 2007 has taken HTML email backwards: last year Microsoft substituted the original HTML rendering engine used by Outlook for an engine that is inferior in terms of CSS support.
Older versions of Lotus Notes also have poor support (version 8 appears to be catching up with other email clients). Android, Blackberry, iPad, iPhone and Symbian S60 can also prove problematic and therefore cannot be guaranteed to display email newsletters correctly.
The Email Standards Project aims to test the compliance of email software to HTML and CSS standards and to lobby for improvements.
Content
When you start to put together the content for your HTML email newsletter remember to keep your articles short with links through to the full articles. Let your reader decide if they want to read further. Don’t overload them with too much information.
Split your content up into paragraphs and highlight topics/information with appropriate images so that your readers can immediately focus in on those subjects that may be of interest to them.
When sending out an HTML email always include a plain text version.
Testing
It’s important to test your HTML email across as many email clients as you can like Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010, AOL Mail, Hotmail, Yahoo, Gmail and mobile email clients like iPhone and Blackberry.
You should also scan your email for ‘spam’ words as well as testing through real spam filters. Key spam firewalls – the gatekeepers for most ISP’s and large corporations can block emails if they trigger a ‘spam alert’. Words like ‘free’ and the use of CAPITALS across an email can cause your email to be blocked, so be careful.
Anti-Spam
In the UK the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations 2003 covers the sending of email marketing. To send an email to anyone, you must have clearly obtained their permission. This could be done through:
- An email newsletter subscribe form on your website.
- An opt-in checkbox on a form. This checkbox must not be checked by default, the person completing the form must willingly select the checkbox to indicate they want to hear from you.
- If someone completes an offline form like a survey or enters a competition, you can only contact them if it was explained to them that they would be contacted by email AND they ticked a box indicating they would like to be contacted.
- Customers who have purchased from you within the last 2 years.
- If someone gives you their business card and you have explained to them that you will be in touch by email, you can contact them. If they dropped their business card in a fishbowl at a trade show, there must be a sign indicating they will be contacted by email.
Basically, you can only ever email anyone who has clearly given you permission to email them specifically about the subject you’re contacting them about.
Make Unsubscribing Easy
A single-click unsubscribe link that instantly removes the subscriber from your list is the best way to provide your readers with a way to opt-out if they don’t wish to receive emails from you. Once they unsubscribe, you can never email them again so make sure the removal of email addresses from your list is efficient and works reliably.
Analytics/Reporting
Analytics is as important for email marketing as it is for your website. It’s therefore important to monitor your email newsletter for the number of people who open your email, unopened emails, bounced emails, opens and clicks over time, people who click-through on links within your email and email client usage etc.
This information can help guide you as to whether you need to make changes to the information you are supplying and where to target your emails.
Contact us if you are considering email newsletters as a marketing solution. We will be happy to talk you through your options.
You can also subscribe to our monthly newsletter on the home page of our site or the email newsletters page (fill in the form in the right hand side column).
