Email Marketing Checklist – Newsletter Format Tips

If you are about to embark on your first email marketing campaign or just want to run quick health check against the format of your current newsletter, here are some basic but fundamental tips to consider when it comes to best practice.

1. Use your company name in the From box.  You need to make it obvious where the email has come from otherwise it may be disregarded as spam. Your recipients should have subscribed to your newsletter and so are more likely to click open if they know it’s from you.
2. Make sure the subject line is relevant to the newsletter.  Tell your recipients what to expect before they even have to click open the email.  Make it as straightforward as possible.  If you have a compelling reason to be writing the newsletter – then include it.  But avoid using trigger words just to improve click through, if the words you are using do not relate to the content.  Make sure you also avoid using spammy language or hard sell tactics as your email could be blocked by spam filters or deleted on receipt.
3. Personalise your emails.  Don’t leave your recipients feeling that they are simply one in thousands on a mail merge list, instead make them feel that you are writing personally to them because you have something to share they they will be interested in.
4. Make it easy for people to opt-out or unsubscribe from your newsletter.  Your recipients may have originally signed up but it’s your responsibility to ensure they can unsubscribe at any time to avoid them feeling that they have just been spammed.  You should also include somewhere in the email, why the recipient is receiving the email.  E.g. You are receiving this email because you opted in to our newsletter.
5. Include your contact details within the newsletter; your address and telephone number as well as website addresses and social networking sites.  Make it easy for subscribers to contact you on the back of the newsletter and at the same time promote your social networks.
6. Create a ‘Text Only’ version of your newsletter. This ensures that it can still be displayed to those subscribers whose email client is only set up to handle text messages.  Otherwise all they will see is a messy combination of text, code and  characters.
7. Include a link to an online version. You can’t be sure of all the email clients that subscribers are using and some may be accessing their email accounts from a mobile device.  So it’s good practice to give them a link to an online newsletter, so that they can still access it as it should appear even if it didn’t render correctly in their email.
8. Avoid using Flash elements.  Flash can look great on websites, but Flash elements are not supported in most email clients or on smartphones or mobile devices.  Your email newsletter should be kept as simple and effective in design as possible, to ensure that as many of your recipients as possible can open and read it.

Needless to say this is not a complete list, but some of the more fundamental points you need to address prior to sending out your newsletter. We will be looking at creative design tips in a subsequent post.

Please feel free to comment and add any other tips that you think should be part of an essential email marketing checklist.