The cool kids don’t like HTML email

Standards based web designers have taken a ‘Just Say No’ approach to HTML emails typically.

It doesn’t matter

We don’t get to decide how people use technologies - the end users have already voted, and they like using HTML emails. There is good reasons for it too, including Jakob Nielsen’s findings that return on investment for email newsletters beats almost anything else.

HTML email can be a better experience

If you signup for an email from Threadless, you probably want to know what new t-shirts are available each week. Having a photo of the new designs is a much faster way than trying to describe it in text. HTML can make a message clearer and easier to understand.

Back to the future

The Web Standards Project stepped into the Browser Wars in 1998, and applied pressure that led to much better standards support in web browsers and from web designers. Unfortunately, HTML email was left behind.

Clients live in an alternate reality

Your clients and bosses think everyone will be so thrilled to receive and pore through your emails, but the reality is that people are very busy and have very little attention to give their email. Web designers need to help move their clients from magical fairy land to an understanding of reality.

Understanding email

An inbox is a very noisy place, and you may only have the tiny subject line or preview pane to make your case in. It’s a different context than a web browser, and you need to design accordingly.

Permission + relevance = attention

It’s no longer enough just to have technical permission to send to people. The content you send them needs to be relevant too, as opposed to the ‘Sims Credit Card’ invitations I get from Electronic Arts! Your clients want attention for their message, so they need to have permission and offer relevance.

Love your text

Being able to control typography with proper headings, line spacing and emphasis is the key benefit of moving to HTML. You don’t need to rely on *hacky* punctuation ______ to make your point. You should spend most of your time making the text readable and clear.

Slot in the permission reminder, unsubscribe and contact details

Those are elements that should be in every email, and you need to design with that in mind.

Be creative

Once you have the core of well formatted text and mandatory elements you can build out your design. 

Design like it’s 1999

You might need to go back to using tables for consistency, and design knowing your images and css might not be applied. 

Email is dead?

Email isn’t dead, it’s just a bit fat. Designing HTML emails is hard and painful. The future of email is in better, faster, smarter tools to handle the increasing volume. In addition, it is businesses sending smarter, more targeted emails that offer more value and less time wasting. Web applications will become better integrated with email, so we don’t have to double handle information anymore.

HTML email is not going away

HTML emails will be sent out, and somebody will design them. It should be web designers.

source freshview.com

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