A while ago I was constructing an email newsletter for a client. The email looked fine in every mail client except for Microsoft Outlook 2007, where a big white space was appearing for no reason. I found that by moving content blocks around, the size of the gap would change but not disappear. Read More

Scenario

Email marketers spend a lot of time crafting beautiful email designs and templates, only to find that when they send it out, it does not render correctly in a lot of email clients. This scenario is sometimes made all the more unpleasant when your Boss receives your email in an email client that messes up your design. This is a frustrating situation, but one that can be avoided through thorough testing. Read More

HTML email is a strange beast.

In many ways it is the epitome of modern communication. With a mobile optimised email a marketer is able to send a visual, interactive, dynamically generated, personalised message across the world.

You would be forgiven for thinking, then, that HTML email is compatible with the most recent advances in modern websites.

This is not the case.

In many ways HTML email and the systems that render them work in a way which is, in internet terms, archaic.

To help those new to designing HTML for email we have put together a handy infographic with some of our top tips for formatting and structuring an unbreakable message.

Here at Emailcenter we have compiled some statistics that shed new light on a consumer’s mobile email habits and have put together an infographic to show our findings.

For instance, 45% of smartphone users do not read their emails, but they simply scan and delete them. With 43% of all UK consumers now able to access emails on their mobile phones, this could spell trouble for email marketers.

Mobile is perhaps the hottest topic in email marketing right now. Our infographic highlights some of the key mobile email statistics that should influence email marketing campaign strategy.

These findings reaffirm the importance of mobile usability to the success of an email campaign. It is essential that subscribers accessing email on mobile devices get the same quality experience as those using a desktop client.

Responsive design techniques now allow email marketers to have their emails auto optimise for both mobile and desktop devices. This not only saves man-hours but also drastically improves user experience and ultimately the overall effectiveness of the campaign.

Luckily for you, Emailcenter offer a free guide on responsive design for email.

What?

In email marketing, opens and clicks are bread and butter.

You have the perfect subject line. It is fully tested and designed to move smoothly through any spam filters.

You have great open rates.

Your content is spot on, your messages are brief and to the point and your images and layout work in perfect harmony.

Despite all this your click rates are terrible.

What is it about your email that is not getting people fired up enough to make that next step and follow a link?

Perhaps it’s because your recipient is not seeing the same email you are.

Major mail clients such as Hotmail, Gmail, Outlook have their own quirky ways of rendering the text and images within your carefully prepared HTML email. Unrequested line breaks can appear, text can be misaligned and images can be cropped, moved or completely invisible.

And that’s without getting into how your email might look rendered on a smart phone.

So what?

If your recipients can’t make sense of your email they will lose interest. If they are interested but the call to action image that you so carefully designed is mangled or has no link attached they will be unable to proceed.

So, thanks to quirky email clients you have less clicks, less conversion, less return on investment for your email marketing.

Now what?

To solve this problem you need to be able to see how your email looks to your real life recipients. It may be that when you send a single test to your particular email client everything looks fine. So how do you check as many possible different mail clients to identify problems?

Method 1 – Manual Sending and Checking

1. Sign up for an email address with every major email client:

a. AOL
b. Gmail
c. Hotmail
d. Yahoo!

2. Download the following browsers and email clients:

a. Firefox
b. Chrome
c. Thunderbird
d. Outlook 2000
e. Outlook 2002
f. Outlook 2003
g. Outlook 2007
h. Outlook 2010

3. Create and maintain a data list with all email addresses of all your testing personas.

4. Ensure you own a minimum of:

a. 1 x PC
b. 1 x Mac
c. 3 x SmartPhone (one AppleOS, one Android, one Blackberry)
d. 2 x Tablet (one AppleOS, one Android)

5. Prior to you campaign start date, send a test email to all of your testing personas

6. Open your email in every client across every browser across every operating system

7. Incidentally you’ll probably need to employ a new member of staff to do all this for you:

a. 1 x new member of staff

Method 2 – Maxemail Inbox Preview

1. Click Inbox Preview
2. See previews of how your email will render on 36 different client and operating system combinations
3. Identify any potential problems and use our HTML for email guide to solve them.
a. Ring our friendly support team if you really need to.  Emailcenter offer free support, after all.
4. Relax
5. Repeat until satisfied