Design

August 13, 2008: Be Wary Of How You Label Your "Unsubscribe" Link
Comments: 1 | Categories: Design , Email Marketing
File this under the "good-to-know" section for your email marketing developments. Apparently, certain popular spam filters such as Spam Assassin consider the term "opt-out" to be spammy. Coupled with common design practices such as including two unsubscribe links (one at the header and the other at the footer of the email), this could be a double-whammy to your email design. How about "unsubscribe"? Well, I've actually tried it again with Spam Assassin and it seemed to help. Unfortunately, I got word that "unsubscribe" may get flagged by other spam filters. I can hear the "OMGs!!!" right now... The alternative is using other words like "remove" or phrases such as "take me off this list" and "I do not wish to receive anymore emails". Don't get overly creative. Be short, sharp and to the point. The more ambiguous it gets, the more likely someone's going to hit the "report spam" button. If its not a properly constructed or recognizable phrase, yup, there may be a tendency for the phrase to get caught by the spam filters as well.

July 22, 2008: 7 Ideas For Creating More Effective And Creative Email Newsletters
Comments: 1 | Categories: Design , Tips & Tricks
Sick of your run-of-the-mill, standard newsletter templates? Even if your client's offerings aren't of the "WOW" variety, your designs can still offer a little something extra that makes it more enjoyable to read. Think "magazine" as opposed to "newspaper". Adding some fun into your email newsletter designs will help increase your recurring click-open rate. If your client's recipients like it, they're likely to be eagerly anticipating the next release. Note that the ideas below are not limited to the designer laying out the email newsletter, but to the entire email marketing team.

July 21, 2008: Image Based Emails - Optimizing For Images-Off
Comments: 0 | Categories: Case Studies , Design
The old saying "A picture speaks a thousand words" holds true for many marketeers. Even as we understand the limitations of email clients and HTML email in general, your clients will constantly have the need for creating visually arresting email designs. Furthermore, due to the unique nature of certain industries, you really can't run away from images playing a big part in your email campaign.

July 21, 2008: Tip For The Day: Style Your ALT Tags
Comments: 1 | Categories: Design , Tips & Tricks
We've stressed many times the importance of ALT tags in HTML email. Unfortunately for us designers (and those good folks who place a strong emphasis on usability and accessibility), here's another thing to note on your ALT tags: Remember to style your ALT tags when necessary. They may be illegible on a background color.

July 18, 2008: 16 "Blink-Ready" Newsletter Templates
Comments: 1 | Categories: Design
Newsletter templates, with its somewhat complex layout structure, can sometimes be a pain to design and code. Coupled with the inconsistencies in email client display, troubleshooting your templates could take hours to days. To help Blink Campaign users get started asap, we've compiled a set of 16 simple newsletter templates which are ready to use with Blink Campaign. Our custom tokens have been included, and all you have to do is slap your client's logo on, or start tweaking some of the colors and font styles. We hope these set of templates will be a useful starting block as well as a simple reference guide on how Blink Template tokens can be used in dynamic email newsletter template designs.

July 14, 2008: Getting Creative With Images Blocking
Comments: 1 | Categories: Design , Email Marketing , Tips & Tricks
Most email clients, both online and offline, block images by default. The age old practise of web accessibility becomes ever more important in instances such as HTML email design. Usage of ALT tags should be mandatory. But I don't just mean putting in ALT tags just to explain what's behind the image. Go one up and get your recipients to download the images and entice them to update their preferences in their email client so that future images from your campaign will be automatically downloaded.

July 14, 2008: HTML Email and Lotus Notes
Comments: 3 | Categories: Design
In a perfect world, all email clients would render our designs the way we intended it to be. Seeing as how browser compatibility for the web is still some way off, email client standardization would be eons away from reaching display nirvana. Together with Outlook 2007, Lotus Notes is a very difficult email client to comply your designs with. Furthermore, there is a general lack of concrete and reliable information on how Lotus Notes renders HTML.

June 27, 2008: HTML Email Do's and Don'ts
Comments: 5 | Categories: Design
Don't use forms Hotmail ignores forms in HTML email to ensure that messages do not contain malicious scripts. Other webmail services (Gmail and Yahoo) and email clients support the use of forms. If you intend on sending HTML emails with...

June 27, 2008: CSS and HTML Email
Comments: 0 | Categories: Design
I love CSS. I really do. I've totally forgotten how to develop a webpage using tables. So this really stumped me when I had to go back and do a newsletter design for a particular client. Its been eons ago since I've last created an email newsletter, let alone coding using tables and spacer images. Because of the huge variation of support across each email environment, there really isn't any one design approach that will guarantee consistency. Instead, you should take a couple of things into account.

June 26, 2008: Creating, Designing and Coding HTML Templates
Comments: 1 | Categories: Design , Email Marketing
Traditional marketing has already started to becomes less effective and accountable since the advent of the internet. Businesses are constantly seeking ways to engage customers on a personal level and provide them with information that is in line with their goals as consumers and in turn, gather information on what sells. HTML emails allow us to do things that traditional email doesn't. Besides having a more pleasing and desirable design, at the same time reinforcing your client's brand, HTML email also allows you to track opens, click throughs and forwards. Communicating with your customers and providing them with information that they ask for is a great way to drive traffic to your client's site and ultimately generate business leads for you and your client.

June 20, 2008: Email Marketing: The Usual Suspects
Comments: 0 | Categories: Business Articles/Tips for Agencies , Design , Email Marketing
Its not just about newsletters or promotional eDMs. To many people, email marketing is synonymous with sales. However, email communication is in essence, far more sophisticated. Using the correct form of email communication can contribute to your client's bottom line in many other advantageous ways. There will never be a be-all, end-all solution for email marketing. Advising your clients accordingly would reap great benefits to your client, and more return business for yourself. Some of your clients may have their needs better addressed with newsletters as opposed to hard sell promotional campaigns.

June 19, 2008: Uploading Templates Into Blink Campaign
Comments: 0 | Categories: Design
Hands up all those who've been having problems uploading templates into Blink Campaign. Honestly, I've had problems doing so myself. And cuss I did. All HTML templates have to be fully XHTML compliant. Yes, that seems to be the issue that we've noticed most of the time from feedback from our support staff.