designing - html emails
There is a growing demand for HTML Emails (or eshots, or e-newsletters). These need special attention . . .
I build dozens of these products a year for a wide number of clients using many delivery systems such as Mailchimp, DotMailer, ProAgency and Campaign Monitor. They require some unique approaches to both design and building which once nailed can result in a good supply of work for us both.
Please be aware that many talented web builders do not have the experience required to build these products. You have to resort to hand coding everything and going back to standards not widely used in many years. The products have to work on many email systems - many more than there are popular browsers and at the heart of them is Microsoft LiveMail and the latest versions of Outlook which use technology from the late 90's to display emails!
There are a few rules that must be followed:
Maximum width
The safe maximum width remains at 600px. This is pretty narrow but on small screens with windows open to the left the viewable area is not too wide. We don't want horizontal scrollbars being introduced.
Editable text
As far as possible there must be lots of editable HTML text to get the products through spam filters. Creating the whole product from one large image with embedded text is a risky business.
Background images
Text can't be displayed over background images, only solid background colours. Support for background images is poor. This also means repeating background images so special boxes with graphical borders and variable height text content is out.
Keep the text size and colour variants minimal
Each text size or colour change has to be done manually using INLINE CSS so the more variants the more time it takes. Inline CSS is the only safe way to go and again we have not used this in years on websites.
Unsubscribe, Forward to a Friend, Display in Browser
There are 3 common standard system links that ought to be in every design to take care of links to perform these important functions. The Unsubscribe link is a requirement under unsolicited email regulations.
I do not usually get involved with setting up the campaigns. Clients are usually able to do this. The process is usually: you design, I build and upload the templates (or just supply the template) and the client creates the campaign and executes. Setting up campaigns can be a huge job if there are large databases of mail lists to import and manage. Breaking the areas of responsibilities down is generally more cost effective for the client. They also should have ownership of deliveries and subsequent campaign analysis.
Creating templates the client can edit going forward is another step along from delivering final product. The design of the template becomes much more critical if the client is to edit them. The best thing is we have a chat, unless of course you are already up to speed with this!
