Email Marketing Made Easy

Posted by Leo on June 9th, 2007 at 04:12pm

You may ask - isn’t email marketing just typing all the sales quotes on an email and send out to list of 50000 people?

Well, not exactly.  I hate spamming and I totally support permission marketing.  Therefore I am assuming that you do proper email marketing.  Or else please close your browser now. 

And putting it in a nice format would certainly help.  However, there are certain rules to follow when you code an HTML email.

Rule #1: KEEP THINGS SIMPLE
When I say simple I mean really simple.  Plain HTML, no nested tables, no scripting.  Email clients are much more sensitive to HTML errors than browsers.   No background images as well.

Rule #2: Use inline CSS
Do not attach an external CSS file, and no CSS defined in head tag.  Only use inline CSS.  And remember, Outlook 2007 has less support for CSS now.  Hence don’t use really complicated CSS.  I also recommend defining text size in px.  This ensures the email shows identically to all people.

Rule #3: Page width
I usually would limit the width of the whole page at 600px.  Let’s say the most popular resolution is 1280 x 1024.  The default Outlook 2003 layout is a 3-column layout.  That means effectively, the preview pane is only about 600px.  My favourite is 500px.  The absolute maximum is really 650. 

Rule #4: File size
Not everybody have superfast internet.  There might be people living in the country side.  Therefore, don’t assume everybody can download your email in a flash.  Keep your email (including the image files) below 80kb.  Remember, internet surfers do not have patience.

Rule #5: No nested tables
(Hey you are repeating yourself!)  Well, because this is IMPORTANT!  I try all my best to avoid having tables inside tables inside tables inside tables - you got the idea now.

Rule #6: Absolute image links
Upload your image to a (reliable) server, then link all your images from there.  If you embed the images into the email, your email would become terribly big and hence, it is just not a good idea.

Rule #7: Use ALT tag, but don’t overflow it
ALT tag is particularly useful as nowadays, most of the email clients (including webmail) have the images turn off by default.  If you embed the main theme / message at the ALT tag of the title image or the main image, it would quickly grab the attention of the user and hence have a larger chance to download the images and read the whole email, leading to larger chance of conversion.  Don’t put “home”, “img001.jpg” etc as the ALT tag.  Well, you are clever enough, you know what I mean.

Rule #8: Include an “unsubscribe” link
Let people have a chance to unsubscribe from your email list.  Don’t make them hunt for it!  This is comliance to the anti-spam scheme.

Rule #9: Have an online version ready
People might have problem, from time to time, reading your email.  Make sure you have a webpage ready on your webserver for people to view.  Google index this page as well!  Therefore, it is better to include in the terms and conditions that “these offer expires on dd mm yyyy”.

Rule #10: Text only version
Include a text only version for people who do not read HTML emails as default.

Rule #11: Lots of links
Why do you want to use email marketing?  Conversions, conversions, conversions, conversions.  Provide lots of relevant links to your website to drive it!  Eliminating number of clicks to the checkout process is already proven to be very effective.

Rule #12: Thorough Testing
Test your email on Hotmail, Gmail, Hotmail Live, Mail.com, Yahoo Mail, Outlook.  Most of them are free anyway.  Just make sure they all look good before you send out to your 5-billion list.

Rule #13: Email Marketing Services
There are comprehensive services that can help you sending emails.  IContact is one that I use most often.  Using these services, although with a monthly fee (which is extremely low), can help you track the response of your email marketing as well. 

By the way, to effectively collect an email list, make sure you have an email subscription form on every page of your website, visible, above the fold.

Please refer to the Outlook 2007 article that I wrote the other day for more restrictions precautions standards.

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