No email can produce results if it looks empty. As we often remind our clients, nearly a third of subscribers have images turned off by default, including Android phone readers and many Outlook subscribers. That’s why we talk about using text pre-headers, a good balance of text and image and alternative or “alt” text when designing emails. At the basic level, you should add alt text to any image in your email design, just in case readers have images turned off. This will show up in the blank image spot […]

After listening to client requests, we’ve upgraded your custom fields in a big way. We’ve added the ability to create 5 more custom fields, giving all standard Platform accounts 25 total customizable data points about your contacts. (This is in addition to your 17 standard fields like First Name, etc.) Not only that, ALL of your fields now have the option to be given a type. Your original 20 fields are text fields with 400 characters by default. You can make 5 new fields and choose from 5 data types:text, […]

Rich media is on the rise in email marketing. In fact, in all marketing. Short videos and animation can help drive up attention & response rates… when they’re done well. Though video doesn’t work in all email inboxes, animation works in all but one: Outlook 2007 and newer will simply show the first “slide” of an animated GIF for example. As long as you remember to make your first image your primary one, you can still use animation in those inboxes that will render it. What goes into a great […]

One of my favorite tricks in designing an email that still works when images are turned off, is the bulletproof button. You may have seen it in action — even if you didn’t know what it was. The bulletproof button is a button that shows up whether images are on or off, by using a single-cell table, a background color and a little CSS with the text link. I’ve had quite a few people ask me how to make one, so I thought I’d post the 4-step how-to. What goes […]

We love when our clients test — and learn — something with their email marketing campaigns. From what works in subject lines to the length of the email to how to best use personalization, testing in email marketing is key to consistently increasing your results. But there’s an important caveat: All tests are not created equal. In order to really learn from your tests, they need to be both scientifically accurate and statistically significant results. Did that phrase take you back to college? It turns out that statistics class is […]