Pretty E-mails for All!
	Posted by Taylor Shanklin at Jul 31, 2008 03:25 PM CDT Categories: Email Marketing

E-mail is awesome.  It gives us the ability to connect with our constituents on a personal level, through an efficient means.   And, these days we have the ability to build beautiful, eye-catching, awesome-looking e-mails. 

In e-mail design, a couple of things should go hand-in hand.  You want to create something that is both visually appealing and accessible across e-mail hosts. 

There are a plethora of available e-mail tools and hosts such as Hotmail, Gmail, Outlook, AOL, Yahoo, Thunderbird, and the list goes on…. With so many e-mail tools available it is important to keep in mind how your particular e-mail design will function and appear in those various e-mail tools when your audience views them.  After all, you do want all of your audience to enjoy their reading experience.  It seems I've had a lot of recent inquiries about e-mail design best practices.  So, I have compiled some of the handy tips I’ve come across.  Here goes:

• Use HTML tables to control the layout of your e-mail, instead of depending solely on CSS positioning.
• Some common table layout elements include: 1.) A header containing a logo and navigation links – used to reinforce branding and important links such as “Visit Us Online”, “Tell A Friend” and “Donate”; 2.) A body containing copy and links to stories, donation forms, events, and the like, that are on your website; 3.) A footer at the bottom - containing contact information, an unsubscribe link and links identical to the top navigation.
• When using CSS, use inline styles to control elements such as colors and fonts.
• Watch the width of your e-mail.  It is recommended to stay in the 600 pixel width range when designing the banner, or masthead, to be used in the e-mail.
• Pay attention to the plain text version of your e-mail.  Don’t disregard how it is organized or looks.  Remember those in your audience who receive plain text and make sure they will enjoy reading their “plain” version, too.
• Testing, 1, 2, 3, testing…Test your e-mail in several e-mail tools on various browsers, such as Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox, and so on  

At the end of the day, what is important is that your e-mails are clean, professional looking, neatly organized and awesome across various e-mail tools.
 

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