In the second in our series on email marketing best practice, we turn to template design. On the face of it designing a template for an email campaign may seem similar to designing a web page, but take care as there are many email clients out there and they do not all display html code the same way! Because of this you need to follow a few simple rules to help to ensure that your email will look good in all email clients. The 3 main rules are:
- Keep it simple, the simpler the html and CSS the better
- Use tables for layout. This may seem a little old hat for many web designers, but for email it is still the best approach
- Keep CSS simple, and don’t use shorthand
If you would like a more detailed guide to template design, I have found this post on email template design best practice on Andrew Sellick’s blog, which covers it nicely. In addition, the Email Standards Project website contains detailed information on the issues & compatibility of individual mail clients. A few other matters to consider are:
- Ensure that your email closely mirrors the design of your website. Email plays an important part in re-enforcing your brand image, so consistency is important
- Wherever practical, personalise your emails. For example, include a customer’s name or some details of the last job you did for them or product they bought
- If you are linking to a dynamic website and using Google Analytics tracking code on your email, test links with the codes in place as these can break links to some dynamic sites
- Never embed images in your email templates, always include them as URL references. Although this means that many recipients will need to actively accept the images, embedding images can significantly reduce deliverability (in fact few email delivery systems will now allow embedding of images)
If you would like to discuss how email can help your business then get in touch, we are always happy to talk.
