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Design For Email 101
July 6th, 2009 by Matt Haff
I had originally posted this on another blog late last year and I wanted to share it with everybody with a few changes.
Please Don’t Mark Me As Spam
- Spam Assasin Criteria, try and stay below “3? on your spam rating.
- Don’t use ALL CAPS
- Don’t use exclamation points excessively, one gets the point across just fine
- Use more than just images in your e-mail
Ways to keep users from hitting the “spam” button
- Keep your Subject relative to the church and what the email is about
- Send your emails to lists no older than 6 months
- Include a permission reminder at the header of your emails
E-Mail Campaign Services
Design Tips
- No wider than 600px
- Top left corner is the first thing that is seen in most e-mail clients and it is 250×250px
Anti-Virus Software messes up a lot of designs and strips out much of the code that we use when designing a newsletter.
- No JavaScript
- No Flash
- No Dynamic HTML
- No <head>
- No <body>
- No CSS Positioning
Images are the next thing that can vary on different clients. Here are some tips about what to expect when sending out e-mail newsletters with images.
- Assume that the pictures are not displayed by default and the user will have to click a link or button to show the pictures.
- Assume that the users will not bother to turn on the images
- Use ALT text format: “graphic: alt text” so that when the picture doesn’t show they won’t read the ALT text like it’s part of the content.
- When your customers sign up for your email newsletter instruct your customers how to add your e-mail address to their contacts
- Attach a vcard, not a must but it couldn’t hurt.
Suggested Websites
