Friday Corner: Where Are You Guilty of Text Messaging?

Source: Tatango

Designing Email Newsletters for the Preview Pane

While elements of design for web or print campaigns can be used across different mediums, there needs to be a clear distinction when designing for email marketing.

Email has many unique characteristics and you need to use specific email-centric design practices, such as creating a snippet is visible in the email client preview pane.

Newsletter recipients will initially see your email in a small preview pane, no more than a couple of centimeters in width and height. The email preview pane is your first impression, so it’s an important task to make sure it's a good one and that key content, such as your proposition and call to action, is easily visible to draw people's interest.

The Rule of 3rds: Divide your email newsletter space horizontally into thirds and put your most important content in the top two thirds of your email. These areas of your email are the most valuable because they are what the recipient sees first.

Effective Branding: A prominent logo in your email increases brand awareness and can reduce spam complaints if the recipients know that the email is coming from a company that they trust. Use fonts, colours and simple copy to make sure your email logo is unmissable and recognisable. If you embed the logo image, you can be certain that all recipients will see it. 

Preview Pane Text: The area of the newsletter templates that is visible to the viewer in the preview pane is usually restricted to the top third of your email. This makes it very valuable real estate. Make sure you include information that will sell your product or service (such as a special or a chance to win something) which will encourage the people to read the whole email. Once you've lured your subscribers to open the message, more information can be included using a click-through.

With GraphicMail's Advanced features you can make use of snippet texts, or "preheaders"; which is that small piece of real estate at the top of an email. It's your value proposition - a teaser for clients to read on. This is especially great for pulling readers from mobile devices since more and more read their email on a mobile phone.

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5 Response Management Tips for Email Marketing

Email marketing is a productive and efficient technology. The convenience and flexibility of email makes it the perfect vehicle for improving a company’s communications performance, but it can eat up time faster than most other communication channels. When you get an email you have a few seconds to decide what to do: read it later, to delete it or reply to it. If you decide to reply, you have only a short time to craft your response; however, even this may break down when what should be a simple once-off reply draws out to long game of email ping-pong.

Good Email marketing management is as much about learning to send communications effectively as it is to respond like a pro; so here are a few reliable ways to help you declutter your inbox:

1) Assess and plan: Establish the quantity of incoming written communication, which response channels your customers prefer (email, SMS/Text or telephonic) and what type of contacts you mainly receive (queries, orders, complaints) then use this research to determine what can be resolved directly, without you mounting the keyboard.

2) Respond rapidly: How many times have you sent in an email to a company and received no response or only a partial answer after waiting for days? Make your customers trust email as a reliable communication line to you by responding as quickly as possible.

3) Stick to the point:  When you send an email newsletter; the subject line is your headline, the email’s purpose should be clear in the first two lines and the action expected of the recipient should be explicit. If you are routinely receiving an excess of queries after every email campaign, it may be that you are not providing all the necessary information.

4) Filter out unwanted email: If your inbox is bulging periodically with 2 000 messages or more after you send bulk email; you need to become a filtering ninja. Most email systems allow for filtering and sometimes you can set up an account to forward emails with certain keywords to an assistant, or to provide specific automated responses. Spend an hour setting up a few of these and then sit back and watch your inbox lose weight.

5) Leave no email unanswered: When customers take the time to send an email, they expect a quick and meaningful response. As a preferred interaction channel, email communication is an effective way for organizations to answer questions, resolve issues and guide people along the customer journey. Answer all emails and avoid causing frustration by ensuring responses are consistent and timely.


For more email response management tips, read our original article on Memeburn.