What are Email Best Practices?
1. Good subject line
The subject line is the most important part of your email because it is what causes the reader to open the email or not.
2. Clear email goal
Have a good idea of the goals of your email, and include several clear calls to action.
3. Email width under 600px
Many people view emails in the preview panel. The size of smallest preview panel is 600px.
4. Link to view the email in a browser
Consider having a link, which opens an email as a web page at the top . It may be useful for users that have a very basic email client on their phone.
5. Unsubscribe message
Always add an unsubscribe link to the bottom of the email in case users may not want your email.
6. Simple Layout
Avoid too many images in the email. The cleaner the design, the less chance of any problem happening between various email clients. Also many email clients will block images embedded in an email by default. The user has to click download on each email to display the images. Make sure your email message is clear even when images are not displayed.
7. Extensive testing
Do extensive testing in all the major email clients.
Below is a list of major email clients to get you started:
- Outlook
- Gmail
- Yahoo
- Hotmail
- AOL
Also check how your email looks on mobile devices. Consider using services such as MailChimp that will create screenshots of 10 most–used clients in your subscriber list.
8. Avoid embedding video, JavaScript, Flash or GIF Banners
If there are any of the above components attached to your email campaign, you should be rather linking off to a live site than embedding them into the email itself. You email may end up in the spam folder.
