Email Design Matters if You Care About Email Marketing Results

Friday, September 30th, 2011 by
You’ve got your contacts list and you have decided on your communication strategy, but before you start creating your emails consider these tips for designing a more effective email marketing campaign for your Belize hotel or resort:Email Marketing in Travel and Tourism Causes Travelers to take action
  1. Create Brand Synergy. Utilize your current brand elements to create a cohesive online brand experience. You should reflect the look and feel of your website.
  2. Watch your Image and Text ratio. Images may look really good, but too many divert attention from your message and may cause your email to be too large for and blocked from some email inboxes. Images should balance and complement your text content. And every image should contain alt-text because some email clients default to NOT showing your images unless the reader clicks to display them.
  3. Use Tables. For consistent display and better control of your email layout, use tables when writing your HTML or when formatting your content within Guest Caye’s Email Editor. Check out these resources on Coding HTML for email vs. websites.
  4. Format Your Images Well. Use photo editing programs to edit images to proper size and save the edited images in your email images portfolio. For best rendering results use JPEG or GIF file types.  Most images should not be larger than 300 pixels by 500 pixels….the ideal size may be 250×250.
  5. Use Plain Text and Web-Safe Fonts. Text from websites or word processors include formatting that cause rendering issues when pasted into your email. Copy your text into a Plain Text Editor such as Notepad (PC) or TextEdit (Mac) and format your text using web-safe fonts.
  6. Send Clear Messages. Before you begin writing, think about what goal you have for the reader’s behavior. Use a Call-to-Action to encourage a response from your subscribers.
  7. Optimize Your Content. Adding background colors to images and including styled "alt" tags will allow your subscribers to experience your content when images are blocked.
  8. Design for the Subscriber Experience. Organize your content so readers can grasp your message and take action. If your copy doesn’t add to building strong reasons for taking action, cut it and write it again.
  9. Be CAN-SPAM Compliant. Laws are in effect in the United States and Canada that govern what you can and cannot do with email marketing. Read up on these important rules here.
  10. Test Every Email Before You Click Send. Errors can reduce your message’s effectiveness and your brand’s credibility. Here’s a testing checklist.

BONUS TIP: Get Social. Integrate social media into your email design.

Thank you to our business partners at ExactTarget for this excellent information.

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