Advised fonts in email marketing

Copy in Arial 10pt:
Visibility studies indicate that the best fonts for email communications are Arial 10pt and Verdana 10pt. It is highly recommended not to use fonts less than 10pt under any circumstance. If you decide to send your email message in 12pt, use Arial. Arial and verdana are standard default fonts and are therefore [...]

Embedded images versus delivery

Some marketers embed images in their proper e-mail message, to prevent that their readers have to ‘download pictures’ first.
Without the deliverability issue, this is a well thought action. Unfortunately, adjusting attachments (like images) will highly increase the chance that your email is reported as spam. Another topic on this blog tells you more about inserting [...]

Creative ways to construct winning emails

How to create email campaigns that give better click through, higher sales conversion and great customer brand experience. This presentation is made by Serge Van de Zande some time ago and reused recently. Serge is managing partner of Luon, a direct marketing and sales company. EmailGarage is a business unit of this Luon-group.

Email Marketing Forum 2007: the slides

Yesterday was a great day for email marketers. The Email Marketing Forum in Brussels brought all email marketing specialists together, speaking about different aspects of this amazing, interactive channel. Subjects as testing, reporting, segmenting and dynamic content were widely presented and discussed.
The Email Marketing Forum was an initiative from Best Of Publishing, a leading Belgian [...]

Best practice: Mitsubishi Outlander magazine

A few posts ago we talked about worst practices, now it is time to pay attention to a well deserved best practice.
Mitsubishi Motors created an email marketing campaign as call to action for a great online campaign. It is the perfect implementation of email and online integration. This topic is about the importance of landing [...]

Put critical information in text, not images

Images are disabled by default in many of the major e-mail clients — AOL 9, Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, Gmail and others. When recipients open a message with images in one of these clients, they’ll see red x’s, warning messages, grey boxes… or simply nothing at all.
If critical branding information is in those images, readers [...]

Always create a plain text version of HTML emails

You can send plain text emails, HTML emails (designed like a web page) or even emails enhanced with rich media such as Flash, a programming language to create animations.
Generally, when a person subscribes to an email newsletter, you should give him the choice between HTML or plain text. Most readers prefer HTML, but with graphics [...]

Visual subject lines???

Advenix just released VisualSubject, a graphical “billboard” that drops down from the email subject line.
(To see how it works, visit http://www.advenix.com/visualsubject.)
Is it an interesting application, providing graphical information in the subject line to help the email stand out from the clutter or a possible new way for spammers to drop undesired content in your mailbox?
Would [...]

Recognition through design

If you want your company to be recognized, be sure to use your corporate identity consistently in all of your company’s communication outings. Logically, that includes your emailings.
 
Why is it so important to use your corporate logo, its distinctive colours and design elements consequently? It’s not just a matter of recognition. It also influences the [...]

How to treat images in an HTML email

Always host images on your website instead of embedding them in messages. Some email providers filter email with embedded images. File size can get quite large with multiple embedded images, which can also get the message blocked.
Instead, host those images on your website and make sure all paths point to the full URL. Always use [...]