The DMA code is the standard to which all DMA members, their suppliers and clients must agree to conduct their business. This email marketing best practice guide will ensure that you satisfy the law and the DMA Code, but it is also about much more than mere compliance – rather, it is about delivering one-to-one marketing that is true exchange of value between your company, looking to prosper, and your customer, looking to benefit.
Marketing in the right way- honestly and fairly, putting your customer first- will also make you a much better and more valued marketer.
Best practice in all marketing can be described, short, as understanding your customer’s expectations of your brand and ensuring that you meet them.
Key legislation
Complying with the law is a basic requirement for all marketers.
Whilst this guide aims to give you a working understanding, you should have your one legal advisors to consult on any point of particular risk, complexity of importance.
There is a wealth of legislation of which you must be aware - all of which works towards making and keeping the medium beneficial to your customer.
The two key pieces of legislation governing email marketing are:
The Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA)
The Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (as amended) (PECR)
Industry codes
Mobile marketing is also subject to code requirements from the following industry bodies:
The DMA Code
DMA members must comply with the provisions of the DM Code.
Non- members are strongly advised to comply with the Code as it is useful summary of the legal and best practice requirements for one-to-one marketers.
The Code is adjudicated by the Direct Marketing Commission(DMC)
The CAP Code
The British Code of Advertising, Sales Promotion and Direct Marketing (CAP Code), which is enforced by the Advertising Standards Authority(ASA).
Receiving complaints
. Have complaints procedure in place Inour era of consumer power and activism, it is prudent that your should have practices in place to handle complaints and disputes that might arise as result of email marketing.
. Define escalation processes Have a plan in place to map out the escalation of a complaint in case your customer is dissatisfied with your initial response.
.Aim for speedy resolution Have Policies and processes in place to ensure that any complaint you receive is resolved as quickly and smoothly as possible.
Failure to do so may result in further or formal complaints being made against you – to the ICO, for example.
Dispute resolution
. Be prepared In the event that an email marketing message has been sent with either incorrect information or an incorrect offer, you must be prepared and able to make strong, prompt decision about how to rectify any negative consequences.
. Record proof of consent Make sure that you have stored the date, source and permission statement of your costomer’s opt- in or soft opt-in consent and that your customer- facing staff are able to retrieve it easily, on demand.
This This will enable you to respond quickly and appropriately to direct complaints, or to provide evidence in th event that a complaint is made about unsolicited email.
Apology emails
. Expect occasional mistakes Despite all best efforts, mistakes can happen.
For example, links may be incorrect. Landing pages may not work or wring offer may be served.
. Assess impact Once a mistake has been made you need to assess the impact quickly.
is important to ensure your response is appropriate – both to those who were affected by the mistake and to those who were not.
Strategy
. Integrate with wider marketing activity Whilst email is one of the marketing channels that shows the highest return on investment, it is imperative that you look at the bigger picture and integrate your email campaigns with other channels as part of your marketing mix.
. Give your customer choice Providing your customers with a choice of how to interact with your brand is crucial to giving them the best possible experience- and you will reap the best results from your marketing campaigns if you have a multi-channel, integrated approach to your strategy.
. Treat channels as complementary Think of your marketing tools as complementary channels, not competitive.
. Treat audiences independently Do not assume that your email subscribers are the same people who engage with your brand through other channels, such as social media sites.
Treat your customer individually and contact them via the channel that most suits their needs and preferences.
. Drive overall brand
Maintain consistency across all channels to ensure your brand messages reinforce rather than contradict each other.
Closing the marketing loop
. Use offline opportunities Consider howyou can integrate offline opportunities to strengthen your email marketing.
For example, experiential and in- store activities offer fantastic sign-up opportunities and subject matter for email content.
. Gather preferences Your best way to capture information about your customer is at their point of sign up- so take this opportunity to ask your customer about their preferences.
. Use complementary messaging Use the right combination of email and mobile marketing to reflect your increasingly mobile audience and their personal preferences.
Use of cross-channel data
. Drive response Use data gathered through other channels to profile and segment your customers and therefore send more relevant emails.
For example, you might use web analytics about browsing behavior; social media interaction to understand successful content; or information gathered during customer service calls.
Website integration
. Integrate software Make sure that your email software integrates seamlessly with your web analytics tools, review software, abandon basket program me or ecommerce platform
This will enable you to follow the entire customer journey from the point at which your subscriber leaves your email, having clicked on your link or offer.
. Drive web traffic Use a variety of channels- such as email, SMS blogs, social media, QR codes- to help drive traffic to your website and drie lead generation.
. Use emails as shortcuts Use emails to deliver your customer straight to the products or pages that they are most interested in.
. Use behavioral analytics Track your customer’s activity on your website after they click through from each email.
This will allow you to see which parts of your site they are particularly interested in – and be better able to serve them the content via email that they are most likely to appreciate and engage with.
Social integration
. Use social channels to drive email sigh-up Use social channels to encourage your customer to sign to your email newsletters, as well as driving traffic to you blogs and corporate websites- it really does work!
For example:
. Add email opt-in forms to your Facebook page
. Tweet links to your subscription page
. Use Google+ or LinkedIn requests
. Use email to expand social reach Use email to direct your customer to your social networking sites to increase their engagement .
. For example:
. Include social sharing buttons beside your email content to advertise your social activity
. Include follow us’ requests on each of your email campaigns
. Monitor metrics and measure results Optimize your email and social integration by tracking your key performance metrics for each channel.
SMS marketing
. Offer subscription via SMS Give your customer the option to sign to your email newsletter via SMS using a short code – a valuable extra way to increase your subscribers, especially when in – store or on the move.
. Make your SMS time – sensitive Use SMS marketing for short, time – sensitive communications- such as appointment alerts or last – minute sale reminders- rather than the richer content that you would typically send in an email campaign.
Creative
Essentials
You have certain obligations to your customer in every email you send.
. Identify sender clearly identify the brand responsible for sending the email – whether it is your brand or your client’s
. Provide sender address and contact details Make sure you include the sender organization’s contact details- typically at the bottom of your email.
. Unsubscribe link customers have a right to be able to unsubscribe from your communications.
It is also very bad for business to have unhappy consumers marking your emails as spam – or even making formal complaints to you, their ESP or an adjudicating organization such as the ICO.
. Honesty and responsibility You have a responsibility to be honest and fair in all your marketing.
Do not send any email that might be seen to mislead your customer, misrepresent the true nature of your organization, purpose, offer or product, or to use any less- fair marketing tactis.
Email copy
Strategy
. Priorities substance over style Emails have become more and more sophisticated as the year have gone by, but nothing is more important than the basic content.
No matter how good your emails look or how well optimized they are, it needs a meaningful message or offer or you risk wasting your time and money and losing your customer’s interest.
. Tailor and personalize copy It is vital that combine compelling and personalized copy with snappy offers and tailored content – otherwise you’ll miss out on the relevance and conversion rates that your email marketing should delivers.
Keep customer experience in mind It is easy to focus on setting up a correct technical email campaign and forget the most important objectiove: to provide your customer with a relevant, engaging experience.
. Have a single goal Do not be tempted to cram in too much information.
A single- minded message, clearly delivered and with consistent CTAs leading to one landing page will create a for more powerfull impact.
. Check out competition Monitor your competitors and ensure that you differentiate your brand from others.
. Be industry – specific Best practices on copy length vary greatly from industry to industry and what works for one industry – retail, for example- canbe entirely different to what works for another- such as financial services.
. Define your customer’s expectations The biggest key to successful copy is to fully understand your customer’s expectations – including industry norms, the information they want to receive, the nature of your offer, the time they are prepared to spend reading and the conversion action you want them to complete.
Tailoring copy
. Keep it tailored to deep it relevant it may be tempting and save time, but do not just take a one – size- fits all approach unless you are writing to a very specific audience with very focused offer.
. Write different versions to spell our the benefit Consumers today are usually too distracted to take the time to work out how your offer might apply to them- so if it means writing several versions that spell it out for different audiences, then take the trouble to do so.
. Adapt to segmentation If your campaign is going to multiple customer segments, use the segmentation factors- such as customer status, age , or previous purchasing behavior- as the basis to tailor your copy accordingly.
. Personalize your email Personalization means more than just addressing your customer by name. Think about using personalized images and content blocks to appeal to their individual interests and preferences.
. Consider your buying cycle Tailor your content and subject line to where your customer is in the purchase cycle. For example, an existing customer may well need to be approached differently to a prospect.
Subject lines
. Be attention – grabbing The right subject line can dramatically increase your open rate.
. Be concise You have roughly 50 characters with which to your customer to open your email, so make them clear and compelling.
. Be consistent Ensure that your subject line matches the content within the body of your email, otherwise you risk confusing or annoying your customer.
Tone
. Write in the second person Your tone will be warmer and your customer will respond more positively to copy that feels really relevant to them.
Use the second – person – ‘you’ – instead of general pronouns such as “people”
For example, write you will find instead of people find;
Calls to action (CTA)
. Make them compelling Make sure your calls to action contain a real and pressing reason to act- and act NOW.
. What will your customer find by clicking through?
. What will their reward or opportunity be?
You should have a genuine reason for emailing your customer in the first place, meaning you should be able to deliver a more intriguing promise than “Click here” or “Buy now”.
. Make them catchy The wording of your CTA needs to be catchy- CTA should prompt your customer to click immediately, not move on.
. Make them frequent Make them punchy and plentiful, so there is always a CTA handy at the point in your copy at which your customer is ready to click.
Always ensure there will be a CTA visible in your customer’s email preview pane.
. Use repetition Give your customer more than one opportunity to click as it might be a later comment that trigger them to act Use a variety of formats, too- such as buttons, hyperlinks and image click-throughs.
Alt tags
. Keep them simple Keep the copy behind the images (alt text/tags) simple and use the apace to briefly describe what the image is – do not stuff them full of keywords.
Mobile devices
. Keep it short Most mobile users only see around 100 words per screen and patience is low – lengthy copy usually will not be seen.
. Use short subject lines Consider shortening subject lines as much as possible.
For example, most i-phone users only see 30-40 characters of subject line.
. Put your most important point first Mobile user trend to read their emails whilst on the move- give your customer your key message in the first few words or they might not get it at all.
Email design
Design and layout
. Design especially for email: Designs for other media, such as print of web, are not necessarily directly transferable to email – it is often preferable to design specifically for email.
. Optimize email for mobile: The majority of emails are not read on mobile devices- so it vital to ensure that your emails are optimized for this.
. Consistent template: Ensure your email template and Layout are consistent with your company branding and your customer’s expectations.
. Vary email content: Keep your content, including offer and information, fresh compelling and interesting.
. Use dynamic content Personalize your email and tailor content to your customer’s personal preferences and their browsing behavior on your site- such as content viewed or purchases made.
. Repeat calls – to- action Include the call to action for your key objective more than once- for example, make sure to include it above the fold, in the middle (if your email is long) and at he end.
. Test everything Subtle differences to images, style, content of subject line can have a significant impact on email filters or customer responses.
. Avoid damage to sender reputation If content is not interesting or relevant, your customer is more likely to flag your email as spam, which will have a negative effect on the deliverability and success of your future campaigns.
. Accessibility See your email from your customer’s point of view and make allowances for difficulties in reading, comprehension and even the setting in which they might conceivably receive your email – for example, at work in busy office or at home with their family.
. Format Make your format decisions based on your email’s function.
For example, if your email is an update for commuters, you might need to format appropriately for on- the – go, patchy mobile network or low-data smartphone consumption. But if your email relates to a desktop office solution, you might expect your customer to view it on an older desktop machine and behind a strict company firewall and so opt for a plain- text approach first and foremost.
. Email size Consider the total size of your email including html and images.
Email size, combined with your customer’s bandwidth, will determine how long your email takes to load and could have a big impact on open rates- especially on mobile devices.
. Color Email design needs to be practical and effective as well as on – brand – so evolve specific email design rules around colour, particularly for key elements such as headlines and calls – to – action.
. Mood and tone: Make sure the mood and tone encourage your customer to want to engage before they gave even read and digested the full content of your email.
. Individual design elements : The effectiveness of individual elements, such as button design, can make literally millions of pounds worth of difference to the conversion rate of brands.
Do not rush over these design features – research the latest ideas thoroughly and make these elements an important variable in your testing.
. Typography Typography is important in establishing the tome of your message before your customer even reads it.
Use typography – including headings, sub – headings, font size and color- to control your customer’s path through key information points and calls – to action.
Typography is also an important factor in legibility. Avoid hard–to–read fonts and stick to the core web fonts that will display consistently across all email providers.
. Imagery An image can make or break your email- so choose wisely and make sure that it is correctly sized and in an appropriate file format.
Use appropriate file formats for images and keep byte size of the images as small as possible. As a rule of thumb use jpeg format for photos or any true color images and gif format for everything else.
Make sure the quality and style suit your brand – and match the color palette of the image to your brand as much as the content.
. Make it work without images Consider how your email looks with images turned off, the default for many email clients.
Some text should be visible when images are turned off, such as header text and alt tags, to explain the message content.
. Background images Background images are unreliable and inconsistent in email clients of try and avoid using them.
. Graphics and icons Graphics and icons can be brilliant tools to help your customer identify separate pieces of information – particularly if your email covers multiple topics, such as a news round- up.
But make sure that these graphics are clean and simple, do not make your email size unnecessarily large and presents correctly across all ESPs.
Simpler is very often better.
. HTML5 You can use HTML5 to create more elaborate and engaging email – but be wary that mobile network limitations and ESP preview setting might heavily impact on your customer’s chance to see your email in all its glory.
. Different devices Design your email to fit the most common devices on which customers will view it.
This may differ drastically for different brands, or even for different customer segments within your database.
. Cross – device testing Use at least one of the many free emulators available online to see how your email will display on all different devices.
It is worth checking on at least two different emulators to be truly confident.
Your email marketing software may be include this tool.
Email marketing works, and thousands of nonprofits are using it every day to build support for their issues, rally volunteers and more efficient ways to contribute financially. They are investing in great email marketing, and their supporters are investing in them and their causes.
That’s the “why.” Sounds good, right?
The problem is that for every great email message a nonprofit sends out, there are at least another 10 that are terrible. Boring Wordy, Vague, Ugly, Not informative, inspiring or motivating.
That’s why we have created this guide – to show you how to seize the opportunity that email marketing provides for your nonprofit and to do it the right way. We’re giving you a little strategy and a whole lot of nitty-gritty tips to create email campaigns and individual messages that your supporters will look forward to receiving and that will help you build a sustainable organization.
Before you send your first email message, you need to set yourself up for success by putting your email marketing system in place, at the heart of that system are two pieces: your email service provider and your mailing list.
Step 1: Get a Good Email service Provider
How do you send emails to supporters and others who want to hear from you?
. An email marketing tool built with nonprofits in mind? . Microsoft Outlook or Gmail? . Carrier pigeons?
If you answered anything but the first in that list, we’re here to sound the “bed idea” alarm. (We won’t get into why carrier pigeons are a poor decision…. Let’s just say their delivery time isn’t up to snuff and clean- up is a nightmare. And honestly, doing email marketing from your desktop email program isn’t much better.)
Many nonprofit organizations get started with email marketing by sending out e-newsletters via Outlook or Google’s Gmail. But beware; there are rules, caveats and landmines awaiting the nonprofit using Outlook or Gmail for email outreach.
While Outlook and its many cousins are fine 1-to-1 email, they weren’t designed for sending email newsletters or fundraising appeals to groups of people. To do this effectively, you need an Email Service Provider. Already have an ESP? You are ready to skip to Step 2. If not, keep reading.
Email service providers (ESPs) are companies that specialize in delivering your email to your mailing list for you. You create the message and you control your mailing list, but all of that data is stored on their computers and your messages are sent out through their mail servers. You login to your account on their website to create your messages, manage your mailing list, send messages, and track what happens after the message goes out.
Many different providers serve the nonprofit community and provide competitive services and affordable rates, including Network for Good’s Email Now powered by Emma.
But an ESP like Network for Good does much more than deliver your messages. Look what else they’ll do:
. Create sign-up forms for your website. Your website needs a way for new supporters to sign up directly for your mailing list. Your provider will help you do this by giving you the HTML code for your sign-up form so you can add it to your website and\or by hosting a sign-up form on their website that you can link to from yours.
.Manage bounces, unsubscribes, etc. People change their email addresses all the time and change their minds about which lists they want to be on. Using an ESP automates the process of managing the individual records on your mailing list. Readers can unsubscribe themselves instead of you doing it by hand, and they can often update their email addresses all by themselves too. When you send a message to an email address that is no longer active, the ESP will remove that record from your list for you. But single opt-in poses several problems. While it will grow your list more quickly, the health, or quality, of your list can really suffer. Here’s why: your sing-up form will eventually get hit by spambots, malicious programs created by spammers to try to get their links on to your website by filling in our web forms. Some spambots intentionally sign up bad email addresses to your list just to be a nuisance. Since ESPs charge based on either the number of records in your database or the number of emails you send, these spambots cost you money.
With double opt- in place, you’ll only send that one confirmation message to that bad address, it won’t be confirmed since it’s not a real person, and the address won’t actually be added to your mailing list. Depending on your ESP, these addresses will be deleted automatically or you can periodically delete them yourself. The same goes for people who simply type in their email addresses incorrectly. Double opt-in is best, and should be your long – term goal, even if you try single opt-in at first.
Moving Your Snail Mail List Online
If you already have a business relationship with a person, it is OK to start emailing them. So if you had a good reason to put them on your print newsletter list (they donated or volunteered, or attended an event, or asked to be put on it), then you can start to email them too.
But what’s legal in not always what’s best. Ideally, you want a list of people who have confirmed that they do, in fact, want to get email from you. So what do you do if you are just starting out? Go ahead and collect as many emails as you can for people already on your print newsletter list and start emailing them. Tell them about all of the great content they can expect to find in your e-newsletters and how often you plan to email them. Briefly describe your email privacy policy so they know that you will not be sharing their addressed with others (and mean it!) and give them links to your full policy.
Segmenting Your List
Where permission is the sun, segmentation is the water.
You can grow pants in the desert, and you can do email marketing without and fruitful with water, and so will your email list with segmentation.
Segmenting your list is like creating smaller lists within your main mailing list. For example, you may want to send a monthly e-newsletter to everyone on your list. But you may also augment just your volunteers to receive special updates. You might segment donors who are supporting one particular program and send them e-newsletters with stories just about that program. You might want to send event invitations based on zip codes or how long people have been donating to your organization. These are all ways to segment your list.
Why segment? Because it allows you to create messages that are more targeted and relevant, which means they are more lillely to be opened, read, and acted upon.
Collection Additional Information about Your Supporters
Of course, having more than just a mane and email address in your database will make segmenting your list much easier. While a new supporter may be leery about sharing lots of personal detail with you, the longer she is on your list, the more comfortable she will be with sharing information like city, state, and zip codes, and personal interests and preferences related to your cause (e.g., if you work at a humane society, and it’s raining cats and dogs, it would be helpful to know who on your list is a cat person and who’s a dog person).
Don’t ask for all those details in your basic email newsletter sing- up form, however. Instead, if your supporters can update there the results, including additional demographic information, will be stored in each person’s profile. Quick surveys are a great way to get advice from your supporters (people love giving advice, especially on things they really care about, like your good cause), while also building up additional personal details like mailing addressed, favorite topics, etc.
Step 3: Figure out What Your Readers Want
Even though your newsletter readers may be incredibly generous individuals, it’s helpful to think of them as very self - centered, selfish people when they are reading your email newsletter. Here’s why: if the content isn’timmediately relevant and valuable to them as individual human beings, they’ll delete it in an instant. You go through your inbox the same way, don’t you?
Know what’s in it for them
We know what’s in it you- you want your supporters to know all about what you are doing and to support you even more. But what’s in it for them? As you write your newsletter articles, keep asking yourself these questions:
. How will this article make our readers feel? . How will it make their lives easier or better? . Does this article show our readers how important they are to us? . Does it celebrate successes they helped our organization bring about?
Survey your readers at least a couple of times each year to find out what they want to know about, what questions they have and what kind of information they want to receive from you. Keep your surveys very focused and short (just a few questions) and offer an incentive, if you can, for completing them. Many ESPs have surveying tools built into their packages, so check with your provider.
Call supporters on the phone and ask them what they remember from your last newsletter and what they’d like to see in your next one. You can also identify trends in your reader’s interests by tracking which links they are clicking on in your newsletters and on your website. Remember, what you find interesting and what your readers find interesting may not be the same thing. Always put yourself in your reader’s shoes.
Also keep in mind that your staff and board members are not your primary audience. They are hyper- connected to your cause and your organization and would be motivated to read anything you produced. They are also more likely to be interested in administrative details and background information that your typical newsletter reader would find boring.
Step 5: Make Your Micro content Even Better
You’ve written your email message. Now you need to go back and rewrite few small sections to make them even catchier.
If your readers don’t see something interesting right away, after skimming your email for just a few seconds, your email is gone from their minds and therefore so is your organization. Grab your supporter’s attention and keep them reading by writing really good micro content – those little phrases here and there where our eyes go first.
Every email has four key pieces of micro content:
· The Subject Line
· The From Line
· The Headings and Subheadings
· The Next Step or Call to Action
The Subject Line
The busier your supporters are, the more likely they are to look at your email subject line and nothing else before deciding whether to read it or delete it. Pack your subject line with details about what’s inside, emphasizing the benefits to the reader of taking a few extra seconds to see what’s in the body of the message, That’ s a tall order for a small space. Do your best to track which newsletters have the best open rates to see which subject lines seem to appeal most to your readers?
Change It Every Time. Your subject line should change with every edition. Don’t waste space with dates, edition numbers, sender info, etc. The only exception would be if you have a very short, memorable, and meaningful newsletter title. You can put the title first, often in brackets like this: [E-News Title] Subject Line Specific to This Email’s Content.
Beware of Telling People What to Do. While you should always include a next step in every email (and with every email article), some research shows that telling people what to do in the subject line itself can hurt your open rates, probably because it’s so easy to decide, “no, true when asking people to help or donate or register.”
Specific calls to action are great within the body of the email, but lean toward the” personal value” words for the subject line. For example, “Where Your Best Friends will Be Dancing All Night Long” will work better than “Register for Our all- Night Dance-a Thon Fundraiser”
Describe the Candy, Not the Wrapper. Tell us what goodies are inside the email, not about the packaging. In other words, don’t put “Environmental homeowners Group newsletter, Volume 5, Issue 7” in your subject line. Instead, describe what’s in this edition of the newsletter, such as “How to Attract Birds and Butterflies to Your yard. “
Forgo wrappers like “parenting Workshops” when your readers are craving candy like “Dinnertime and Bedtime Routines that Preserve your Sanity.” Even if you have multiple topics in your newsletter, experiment with subject lines that emphasize only one or two topics. They’ll get your newsletter opened, giving a little more room to share all that you have.
· Keep It Short. You’ll find all kinds of advice on just how many characters are optimal for email subject lines. Some go as high as 60 characters, including spaces. Somewhere around 35 characters seems to be the ideal now, but some people argues that even shorter is better (more like 20 characters). You can play with subject line length and see what works for you, but do try to keep it under 60 characters tops.
The From Line
While you want to change your subject line with every edition, your “from” field should stay the same. Put an unmistakable name there. For most nonprofits, this will be your organization’s name or a well- known campaign or initiative. Don’t use a staff person’s name unless at least 80% of the people on your mailing list will recognize it. If you decide to use person’s name (it is more personal after all), include your acronym or other identifier right after name.
The headings and subheadings
Readers will open your email based on the subject line and from field. What they do next depends on your headlines and subheadings. Descriptive headlines and subheads active verbs and vivid nouns will grab your supporters’ attention and nudge them into actually reading the text.
Just like in the subject line, your headlines need to answer the old “what’s in it for me?” question. Why should I take precious time, if you give them information they want, need, or are curious about. Or if reading your email will help them do something faster, cheaper, or easier. Or if your email makes them (especially if they are your donors) feel like their lives are a little bit more enjoyable, satisfying meaningful.
Headlines and subheadings that make people think “This is useful” or “This is timely” or “This is about me” will always work. For example, an environmental group might out a message with this article headline: “States Challenge Federal Drinking Water Regulations in Court.” While this with this an important public policy issue, the headline doesn’t sound very personal or relevant to an individual. But something like “Is Slightly Dirtier drinking Water OK with you?” would get some attention, because that personal relevance is now right there in the headline.
The Next Step or Call to Action
They’ve read the email. Now show them how to take that next step that brings them closer to your organization and to their own values. Remember the filmable moment. Be very clear about exactly what that call to action is and how they do it.
Make it stand out on its own paragraph. Bold it. Link it to the place on the web where they need to go next to take that action. Use big, colorful “Donate Now” button or make that link text so easy to see and undeniably compelling they can’t they help but click.
Images near the top your newsletter can hog that important space or waste it entirely if images are turned off in the email program. For example, if you want to use an image as your newsletter header, keep it “short” – say under100 pixels high – so that it doesn’t fill up the whole preview pane. Be sure that you have plenty of compelling text near the top of the newsletter so that even if images are turned off, the reader still sees some interesting text. Also be sure to include ALT attributes with all images (see “When Your Images Are Blocked” side article for more information).
Use images wisely. Never send an all- image email newsletter. You’ve seen those emails where the entire preview pane is filled with a big blank or red X. They are trying to send you pretty email by including all the text in a graphic. The problem is that many email programs don’t show images by default. Therefore, you see nothing but the box. Bye, bye , bad email. Straight to the trash with you!
Try to keep your images more than 300 pixels wide and 300-400 pixels tall. Most ESPs will ask you to upload your images to their server and will likely have limitations on the size, file format, and quantity of images you can store. You can also link to images elsewhere on the web, but make sure you use the full
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