When designing a creative piece for your e-mail marketing campaign, there are several key factors you should keep in mind. Aside from making sure you have eye catching images and interesting content to grab your readers’ attention, you want to make sure you create your ad piece in an HTML format. E-Mails in an HTML format are not only more likely to reach your target, but more likely to reach your target’s inbox, rather than their junk folder.
While a text-only e-mail format may be easier to deal with in terms of execution than an HTML creative, consider your target and what you’re offering. Most of the time, when a consumer receives a text-only e-mail from a source they are not familiar with, it is immediately disregarded – probably due to the lack of a “wow” factor, and an overall unprofessional appearance.
Additionally, HTML is strongly recommended as opposed to CSS format. CSS is a format better suited for web browsers than in an email context. While in theory it seems as though you can simply cut and paste the code from your webpage into a document and send it off for email, it’s not quite that simple. Due to its web format, often, you will find CSS to be misaligned and/or jumbled once it hits an actual inbox.
Finally, try to steer clear of any video media you may want to include in an initial broadcast. As email delivery is all about building a trusting relationship between your IP address and your targets, a video may cause their Email Service Provider to flag you as SPAM, leading your campaigns to live an endless life of Junk mail habitation, never to be seen again.
