Email marketing is still one of the best mediums to promote you and your clients online. One of the key factors towards a successful email campaign is the design and HTML code that lie behind the newsletter. Nearly every email provider uses a different rendering engine. This article will help you to produce a more effective email template by outlining the major areas for consideration in the design process.
Email marketing newsletter – format.
The most stable way to format HTML emails across most email readers is to use tables. Email clients like Gmail and Outlook 2007 have very poor support for float, padding or margin. Therefore it is far better to use tables as the framework for your email.
For the best results, keep the following in mind when coding the table structure:-
- Set the width in each cell, not the table.
- Avoid unnecessary whitespace in a table cell.
- Use a container table for body background colours.
Images within an email newsletter.
The combined size of all images within your email should not exceed 300-400kb. If you exceed this size, this can considerably slow down the time taken for the images to be downloaded and could have an impact on the responsiveness of your campaign. In some email clients, the recipient must click on a link in order for the images to be downloaded and for your email to be displayed in the way it was intended. You should therefore consider the look of your template without the images and ensure that the message is strong through the copy and not just the images.
Include the width and height attributes in your <img> tag to maintain the layout of your email without the images. Including alt attributes in image tags will show a description of the image when the image is not displayed.
Background images may not display in all email clients, especially Outlook 2007.
Fonts and Styles
You can use in-line or embedded styles for formatting but it is best to also use font tags as well because they are more globally supported. Some email clients will strip out styles so you should make sure that your message can still be read without them.
Avoid Scripts
The majority of email clients will either strip out or block emails containing JavaScript, Visual Basic and Perl. It is therefore recommended to avoid using scripts with your email templates.
Looking ahead
Designing an email newsletter can be tough for new designers as well as for experienced web designers. To get the correct result in every email service provider can be quite a challenge. Remember that every new software release by an ESP can change slightly the rendering engine. The aim of groups such as <a href=“ http://www.email-standards.org“>Email Standard Project</a> is to keep the HTML programmer up-to-date with all new changes.
Email marketing may not be the most compliant or fashionable medium, however the results speak for themselves, email is, and will continue to be one of the most successful and targeted marketing channels available to you.
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