Zrinity Email Marketing Blog

More discussion from the Ultimate Email Design Guide:

{B2C ALERT}: Use inline CSS text‐decoration property to underline in the tag of
every link where you wish to have the link underlined.

• Some email recipients such do not underline hyperlinked text so the underlines must be forced in the code. I have also noticed this with some of the blogging systems where they do not automatically underline hypertext. I do not understand the logic since our observances indicate that underlined hypertext and any other aid that can be utilized to scream that the text, or image, is a link is highly successful. Images that say click here or even images in general tend to get more clicks than plain text or images with no “Click Here” type of call to action. No matter what the reason, you do need to tell the email recipients such MSN that hypertext is linked to someplace.

Use tables and nested tables for layout. Don’t use background images or spacer images.

• Images don’t do much when they are typically not there. Those who are already defined as somebody likely to click on your email will “Click to View Images” or better yet “Always Show Images From This Sender” but what if they might be on the edge? In this case you need your layout to be well defined. Don’t use tables to try to get too fancy, but the basic layout should remain in tact no matter who it is delivered too.

Always assign colors! Even if the text color you desire is black, always define it as black.

• It is better to over define your HTML. Always define colors since some default color settings can wreak havoc with your email campaigns.

More Resources: Ultimate Email Design Guide, Email Best Practices Case Studies, On-Premise Email Marketing

A few more tips form the Ultimate Email Design Guide Check-Off List.

Send multiple versions of the same ad‐email using multivariate testing. Start NOW and learn as you go about your readers.

• Create multiple strategies and use all of the best ideas from your marketing team. Your multiple ads will help you hone in on the one that works best for your particular list of email recipients and prospects. Most systems do not give you the ability to do this type of advanced AB testing. This is an evolved version of AB testing where you test more than two email-ads at a time. The objective is to get to the email campaign more quickly and let the results determine what your next campaigns will be and look like. This is yet another way that Zrinity empowers marketers with the ability to look at what email recipients are doing rather than guess or do surveys to try to guess responses. We at Zrinity call this Science over Surveys.

Avoid being blocked based upon HTML integrity. Triple check for obvious HTML errors and use basic HTML. Avoid rich media, animated images, image maps, forms, and anything that is “dynamic” in nature.

• Plainly phrased, don’t get too fancy with your email design. It is more important that your message resonates than it is that it looks precisely like your brochure. If you have your branding well represented and you have a professional html email design, and you heave a powerful system, then your results will prove successful and you will make money.

Use Alt Tags AND text descriptors for key images. Most email providers’ automatic settings are to block images. Hotmail does not show Alt Tags.

• Even Alt tags for images do not show in some email recipient systems, so a text descriptor is a very good idea. Another strategy we found through a customer is to have action items such as “Buy Now” buttons look very attractive in a small table with a color background. It seems that using these almost always guarantees that the action item will be displayed and look catchy to attract clicks.

More Resources: Ultimate Email Design Guide, Email Best Practices Case Studies, On-Premise Email Marketing