From the designers point of view, the email must be attractive. You need to make the most boring, visually unappealing items look exciting. After all, the point of the e-mail is (in most cases) to entice the viewer to buy the item. Creativity is important. For example, you may be asked to advertise Sticky-Tack. Instead of simply showing a pack of Sticky-Tack, try experimenting. Maybe you could use the Sticky-Tack as a font to write out your intro text, or to illustrate your "call to action" button.
This brings me onto possibly the most important element of e-shot design; the "call to action" (CTA). The CTA is the point at which the user reacts to your email. This could be by clicking a link or by dialling a number. What you as the designer must do is make this CTA stand out and be counted. It is also a given that the marketeer must provide snappy, intelligent copy via a competitive offer, as without this the most intuitive designs are futile.
Be sure to include as much information as possible, without saturating the design of the e-shot. This balance is hard to achieve, but it's fair to point out that the most important things to consider are:
- Important links
Look at your site stats and see what is clicked most often. Repeat this in your email.
- CTA
If this is based around a leading product/offer, make it clear and make it near the top of the email so the user doesn't have to scroll to see it
- Contact information
If you have pysical premises, be sure to give details somewhere. It will make the user feel more confident in your company. Provide payment information, adding also the users confidence in your competence as an online trader.
With these basic elements covered, we can look into building and mailing your campaign.
Designing for email is even more difficult that designing for the web, because each e-mail client (Hotmail, AOL etc) reads your HMTL different, and this is also affected by the client browser (Firefox, IE etc). Most big companies are getting around various problems simply by sending out their images as one large, optimised graphic. Arguably, this is the ONLY way to have the user see exactly what you want them to see. I recommend this, but if it is not possible, you may slice your graphics up. But try to avoid copy and don't pout your images into tables. You might see strange things happen in different browsers. Always provide a text-only version of your email, and an online version in case the browser can't view it for any reason.
There are many bulk-email sites available, but the one I use is Vertical Response. It's very simple to use and also massively cost effective.
That's all for this article, but there is a lot more to be said that I may cover in the future! Thanks for reading.
Matt Saunders
Space Clothing