To effectively deliver a branded eblast, newsletter or business email, you will need to create it using HTML. HTML allows you to use your company colors, fonts, images and styling in email.
However, most people do not realise that designing HTML for email is very different from designing HTML for webpages.
So I thought I'd list 5 important points to consider.
1. Lack of experience and knowledge
Just because someone did a 2 day dreamweaver course 3 years ago, does not mean they understand the differences between web and email HTML. Get someone in who knows what they are doing, someone with a proven track record in email design.
2. Design for lowest common denominator.
Yes, your all singing all dancing HTML email looks great. Who cares if it does not work on Microsoft Outlook? erm.. well... 43% of people who use email! Know your email clients, test your email on as many different clients as you can.
A big rule of thumb here is to rather dumb down your email design than to alienate your recipients.3. Know the differences between web and email HTML
There are a multitude of differences and I will address this in another posting, but the biggest difference is that Email has no header tags.
No header tags means that style sheets (CSS) should be placed in the body of the email4. Rendering of Email
Did you know that Microsoft Outlook 2007 and later now uses MS Word to render HTML? Most other email clients will use the default webbrowser on your machine.
When an email is forward, the email client will re-render the email using its own proprietary language (EML, RTF etc.). This will more often than not "break" your carefully crafted code.5. No Scripting!
Even if you embed it in the body you should never use any form of scripting such as JavaScript. Using JavaScript is a quick way to getting your emails blocked and your domain blacklisted.
Future posts will discuss each of these issues in depth.
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