The best advice I can give email marketers to start their year is to craft emails that are optimized for the inbox. Email needs to be given the same attention that is placed on your web and print marketing efforts It simply cannot be an afterthought or a “digital version” of your print campaign – email is too powerful and has too many variables to be treated as such. To attain maximum design success this year, marketers must recognize that email has a unique set of challenges and principles that need to be taken into account.
1. Your email design needs to take into account image blocking, preview pane viewing and the unique nature of the various email clients. It doesn’t matter how beautiful your design is if your subscribers can’t see it!
2. Make sure your primary call-to-action can be seen in the preview pane by including it in the upper left quadrant of your email.
3. By using HTML text for your call-to-action message, you will avoid the image blocking issue as well. And by seeing a relevant call-to-action, your subscribers will be more likely to download the images, add your email address to their safe sender list, or interact with your email.
4. Test your email in as many different email clients as you can. This can be accomplished using a service such as Pivotal Veracity or by signing up for free email accounts (Yahoo, Gmail, Windows Live Mail, etc.) and including them on a test list.Despite their differences, you can develop a version of your email that functions well across all the major email clients.
By taking these factors into consideration and giving your email design the attention it deserves, you will increase your chances of email design success. So take a deep breath and repeat after me: Design with the inbox in mind!
Tim Siukola, Senior Email Campaign Manager
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