Email marketing campaigns are a power tool in today’s international internet web market. Using this powerful resource wisely can raise your bottom line, with a cost-effective strategy, giving you the ROI you need.
Whether you use bulk email marketing with a direct mail target – or an e-newsletter, keeping your brand alive and relevant can make the difference in your growth and sales. Creating and achieving the correct content and design to the right target is crucial. In this article, we will concentrate on several good designing tips for content and appearance.
When designing your email newsletter, use consistency for each template. Remember, your newsletter is supplementing your website, having the same look and feel of your web presence. This keeps your brand and logo alive in your client’s mind.
Why Should I Use an E-Newsletter?
Simply put e-newsletters nurture and build relationships with your clients. They enable you to quickly share your company news, events, and special offers. Business email marketing is cost-effective and easy. Within seconds, you can send out one e-newsletter in a direct bulk email campaign reaching thousands of clients worldwide.
Developing your Email Newsletter Campaign
First, research email marketing services online. It is important to obtain just the right email marketing software tools. These tools will give you the ability to create a professional and successful email campaign. With the right software, you can monitor the results of each campaign. This will give you the knowledge needed to modify and improve each email campaign, continuing to benefit from the statistics gathered.
Building your Email Address List
Without a targeted list with accurate demographics, you are sending emails into space. Building an accurate subscriber list is crucial to sending out relevant information to the correct audience. Sending information to an unwilling recipient may cause your delivery to end up in the junk or spam folder. This is a waste of your creative energy and precious time.
Before designing any email template, here are just a few helpful tips:
- The Can-Spam Laws: Every business that uses email marketing needs to know about the CAN-SPAM laws. CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (Controlling the Assault of NonSolicited Pornography and Marketing Act) established the requirements for those who send out commercial email. There are penalties involved if you are reported as a spammer. Do your research and know the laws.
- Optimize Your Images for the Preview Pane: Most people do not maximize their windows. They view their emails through default sized preview panes within their email clients. The average preview pane is around 300-500 pixels high. With that in mind, keep your images small and your banner width not more than 500 pixels.
- Blocked or Disabled Images: It is estimated that anywhere between 20 and 50 percent of email recipients block all or some of their images. By default, several popular email programs disable the images automatically. Many users do not change that default, and therefore never see your images within your email marketing campaigns.
Predetermine your E-Newsletter Format
The average user today has cable or DSL turning most businesses to the HTML format of their newsletters. With the heightened anti-spam laws now including image-spam, your graphics should be optimized and kept at a minimum. With email clients turning off images as the default, many recipients never turn them on. It is advisable to offer a text alternative to your recipients in the Opt-in box of your newsletters.
Creating an E-Newsletter Template Design
When planning your newsletter template for any email marketing campaign, you need to remember flexibility and simplicity. Create an email template that can be modified easily to fit the target and message needed. You will need to plan several kinds of variations, specifically customized for each campaign and message. This takes time and planning and will represent the voice of your communications and presence in the marketplace.
Designing your Logo Brand for E-Newsletters
Your business logo immediately identifies you as your recipient scans their inbox. With that in mind, you need your logos to be clear, crisp, and legible in all your email marketing campaigns. Having a professional, well-defined logo creates familiarity, loyalty, and trust with your clients. Remember to always test your logos in different email clients and web browsers.
Include a Table of Contents
The average person receives hundreds of emails within their day. Having such precious little time to read their emails, your recipient will lose patience if they must scroll down your newsletter for content and articles. Make your e-newsletter a pleasant and simple experience. Create a hyperlinked table of contents enabling them to jump quickly to the articles that interest them the most.
A Few Tips for Text
- Keep the subject line short and catchy. If it is too long, it may end up in the Junk Folder.
- The first two lines of your text should carry the most important information you want your recipients to see. Most of your recipients will only view a few lines of text in heir preview pane. Make it count.
- Create clickable links. Hyperlink your text to the website target.
- Use capitals in your headlines – important titles should stand out.
- Divide and conquer. No one parses chunks of text. Separate your text with bullets, headings and numbers. Reading large chunks of text is hard and boring.
- Don’t say too much. If an article is interesting but too long, create a hyperlink to your website for the full story.
A Few Tips for HTML
- Your header should mirror your homepage along with its design and navigation. Your customers should always recognize your brand.
- Optimize your images keeping your e-newsletter at a scanable size
- Do not be guilty of image overload. Too many images and too little information is a bad combo.
- Use “Alt” text tags for images that may not display due to email blocking defaults.
- Use web safe colors. This assures you that every browser and monitor will display the colors the way you previewed them.
