How to Design HTML Emails

April 2nd, 2010

HTML email newsletters have come a long way in the past five years. They’re now a useful way to get a web page delivered to interested readers to encourage them to visit your website or have your readers perform an action. The email marketing process also has become routine.

This article brings you up to date on how best to code HTML email so that it will display well in most email software. It provides an exhaustive overview of how to code html email newsletters (even in Outlook) with links to free html email templates, CSS compatibility tables, services that test your html email, and much more. As a result, this article strives to provide a comprehensive overview of all possible resources online compared to other articles on this topic which may be vendor-specific or incomplete.

Here are some quick links if you only need specific information:

The Building Blocks

• Step 1: Use HTML Tables for Layout
• Step 2: Add in CSS Styles
• Step 3: Add HTML Email Best Practices
• Step 4: Code for GoogleMail, LotusNotes, and Outlook 2007
• FAQs: Create HTML Email in Outlook, Background Images, Create Anchor Links in Email, Add Video to HTML Email
• Where to Learn More about Coding HTML Email, Including Free HTML Email Templates

Whether you use a template or hand code (my preference), there are two key building blocks for html email:

1. HTML tables control the design layout and some presentation
2. Inline CSS controls presentation, for example, colors for backgrounds and fonts

The quickest and easiest way to see how HTML tables and inline CSS interact within an HTML email is to download templates from Campaign Monitor and MailChimp, two email delivery services that provide free templates (links are below in the Where to Learn More section).

When you open up their templates, you will notice several things we’ll discuss in more detail later:

• CSS style declarations appear below the BODY tag, not between the HEAD tags.
• No CSS shorthand is used: instead of “font: 12px/16px Arial, Helvetica” break this shorthand into its components of font-family, font-size, and line-height.
• SPANs and DIVs are used sparingly to achieve specific effects while HTML tables do the bulk of the layout work.
• CSS style declarations are basic with no hacks required.

Step 1: Use HTML Tables for Layout

Determining the layout design is the first step in coding an html email. Single column and two-column layouts work best for emails because they control the natural chaos that results when a lot of content is pushed into such a small space as email.

• With a one column layout, typically there is a header that contains a logo and some (or all) navigation links from the parent website. Below that are the intra-email links to stories further down in the email. At the bottom of one column layouts are the footer (often with links that repeat the top navigation) and detailed unsubscribe instructions.
• Two-column email layouts also use a header and footer. They also typically use a narrow side column to contain features and links to more information. The wider column holds the main content of the email.
• Promotional emails follow the same rules but with much less content and links. They often include one to two messages and sometimes one big image with small explanatory text and links below the image.

No matter how your email is designed, the most important content (or reference to that content) should appear at or near the top of the email design, so it is visible immediately when a reader opens your email. The top left of an email often is the first place people look when they open an email.

All of these email layout possibilities can be coded easily with html tables to divide up the space into rows and columns. Using html tables also helps with problems caused by different email software and how they can read the same email code differently.

The basic approach follows these steps in coding the email layout with html tables:

• For a two-column layout, create one table each for the header, the center two content columns, and the footer. That’s three tables. Wrap these tables into another table that “wraps” or “frames” the other tables. Use the same approach for one column layouts except the content table has one column. This approach helps with email designs that break images into multiple table cells. Otherwise, a single table with TD rows for header (with colspan=2 if the design is two column), content, and footer should display fine for all but Lotus Notes email software.
• Use the HTML table attributes within the TABLE and TD tags, for example, to set the table border=0, the valign=top, the align=left (or center, if that is the design), cellpadding=0, cellspacing=0, and so on. This primarily helps older email readers to display the html email in a minimally-acceptable way.
• Set the HTML table border=1 to help debug any problems with the internal alignment of TR and TD tags in development. Then change it back to border=0 for testing and production.

While this approach might offend purists who prefer to code to the latest standards, you do not have to be a complete primitive. No matter how badly LotusNotes displays html email, resorting to HTML FONT tags is not required (although use of FONT tags cannot hurt, honestly). And while Outlook 2007’s HTML rendering engine is less than perfect, it does display basic HTML tables just fine.

Step 2: Add inline CSS Styles

Once the email layout is coded as a set of nested HTML tables, the next step is to add inline CSS styles. Here are the steps to follow:

1. First, put style information (style=) into the HTML tags, for example, TABLE, TD, P, A, and so on.
2. Place the CSS STYLE declaration right below the HTML BODY tag. Do not use the CSS STYLE declaration in the HTML HEAD tags as is done when coding web pages. Google Mail, in particular, looks for STYLE anywhere in the email and (helpfully) deletes it. And don’t bother to use CSS LINK to a stylesheet. Google Mail, Hotmail, and other email software ignore, modify, or delete these external references to a stylesheet.
3. For the frame table, the one that contains the header, content, and footer tables, style the table width at 98%. It turns out that Yahoo! mail needs the 1% cushion on either side to display the email properly. If side gutters are critical to the email design, set the width at 95% or even 90% to avoid potential problems. Of course, the tables inside the frame (wrapper) table are set for 100%.
4. Put general font style information in the table TD closest to the content. This can mean repetitive style declarations in multiple TD cells. Put font style definitions into heading (e.g. H1, H2), P, or A tags only when necessary.
5. Use DIVs sparingly to float small boxes of content and links to the right or left inside a table TD cell. Google Mail appears to ignore the CSS Float property but Yahoo! and Hotmail work fine. Outlook 2007 ignores floats. Sometimes it is better to code a more complex table layout than rely on the Float property. Or, since email is easy to clutter, ask that the design put the floated content in the narrow side column. Floats are the one part of an email design that might require the design be reworked.
6. While DIVs appear to be barely useful, SPANs appear to work almost every time because they work inline. In some cases, SPANs can be used to position text above or below content, not just to color or re-size type.

If you download and study the email templates from Campaign Monitor and Mail Chimp, you’ll see they treat the frame table, the one that wraps the tables that hold content, as if it were the HTML BODY tag. Campaign Monitor calls it “BodyImposter” which is a great way to think about the frame or wrapper table. From a CSS perspective, the frame table does what the HTML BODY would do if services like Google Mail didn’t disable or ignore the BODY tag.

Step 3: Best Practices

There are several best practices to follow to ensure your email code works well.

With the html email coded as described above, the next step is to test the email in a variety of email software. Often this will identify problems that require workarounds.

• The first test tools to use are the Firefox and Internet Explorer web browsers. If the email displays well or perfectly in both browsers, chances are good that testing the email in Outlook, Yahoo!, Google Mail, and other services will reveal only minor problems. You also might want to use the Internet Explorer 6 web browser to test for Outlook 2003 which uses its rendering engine (see Resources below if you need to download IE6).
• Once the email appears fine in the two web browsers, use an email delivery service to send the email to a range of test email accounts. Ideally this should include accounts with Yahoo!, Hotmail, and Google Mail.
• Which test accounts are used, however, should be determined by the domain names in the email address list of people who will receive the email. For example, if there are few or no AOL subscribers on this list, then it may be a waste of time and money to set up an AOL email account.

Here are the most common code tweaks that are found in this test phase:

• Sometimes a switch from percentage widths to fixed widths is needed. While this is not optimal, because people can and do resize their email windows when reading, sometimes using a fixed width is the only way for a layout to display properly in multiple email software.
• If there is a spacing issue with the columns in the email design, first tweak the cellpadding and cellspacing attributes of the HTML tables. If that does not work, use CSS margin and padding attributes. HTML spacing works better with older email software than spacing with CSS.
• Image displacement can occur when a TD cell is closed right below the IMG tag. This is an ancient HTML problem. Putting the right after (on the same line as) the IMG tag eliminates the annoying and mystifying 1 pixel gap.

In addition, the following best practices are recommended:

• Avoid javascript. Most email software disables javascript.
• If an image is cut up and spread across several HTML table cells, test the email with many test accounts. Sometimes it looks great in Outlook but shifts by 1 pixel or more in Hotmail and other services. Also consider putting the image as a background image on a new html table that encases all the table rows and columns that would display parts of your background image; sometimes this achieves the same effect as cutting an image up but with less code and better results. Note that Outlook 2007 does not display background images. Be sure to test your email code with your target email software.
• If you use background images, use the HTML table attribute background= instead of CSS. It works more consistently across email software.
• Store the email images on a web server, preferably in a folder separate from website images, for example, in /images/email not /images. And don’t delete them. Some people open emails weeks or months later, the same way people use bookmarks to return to websites.
• Be sure all your images use the alt, height, and width parameters. This helps with Google Mail as well as when a reader has their images turned off. However, Outlook 2007 does not recognize the alt= parameter.
• Use the target=”_blank” attribute for the HTML A tags so that people reading with a webmail service don’t have the requested page appear within their webmail interface.
• While a 1×1 pixel image can be used to force spacing to create a precise email layout, spammers use 1×1 pixel images to determine if their email has been opened.
• Avoid a big image above the fold in the email. This is another classic spammer practice and can increase the likelihood an email will be tagged as spam.

• My final test is to view the HTML email with images turned off. Outlook and some other email software set images off by default, to prevent spammers from knowing your email address is active. I set images off in my code by using my editor’s search and replace to delete some part of the src= URLs in my file.

Make sure your email content displays fine without images. For example, if you use a background image to provide a background color with white font color over it, make sure the default background color for that part of the HTML table is dark, not white. Also be sure your alt=, height=, and width= parameters are set for images so they can help readers understand your content without images. Turning off your images will help you catch these issues and ensure the HTML email will display effectively if people see your email with images off.

Once the html email is tweaked so that it displays well or perfectly in the test email accounts, the next step is to go through a checklist. Verify that

• The From address displays properly (as a name, not a bare email address)
• The subject line is correct
• The contact information is correct and visually obvious
• The top of the email has the text, “You received this email because … Unsubscribe instructions are at the bottom of this email.”
• There is text asking readers to add your From address to their email address book
• The top of your emails include a link to the web version of your email.

If it is important to know absolutely everything wrong with the html email code, try a service like Browsercam.com or LitmusApp.com. These services show how your HTML and CSS code will display as email or, in the case of Browsercam, as a web page.

Step 4: Coding for GoogleMail, LotusNotes, and Outlook 2007

Google Mail, LotusNotes, and Outlook 2007 present special coding problems. The good news? If you code to account for their oddities, your html email code is more likely to display well in most if not all email software.

Because Google cannot control how senders will code CSS and HTML, they have to take steps to ensure their application displays properly regardless of the code quality of the html email that is displayed.

As a result, Google Mail acts like an artifact of the mid 1990s when web standards were primitive. It takes some work, but it is possible to crack open a Google Mail page and see just how convoluted their approach is to rendering html email.

For one thing, Google Mail deletes any CSS style reference to a set of styles, no matter where it appears in the email. And fonts displayed in html tables have the odd habit of appearing larger than intended no matter how the html email is coded.

Here are coding techniques that appear to work well in Google Mail and older email software:

• Define the background color in a TD cell with bgcolor=, not the CSS style.
• Use the background= attribute in the TD cell for background images, not the CSS. A corollary is that the background image can be made as tall as needed. If the content of an email template might be short or tall depending on the email content, using an extra-tall background image this way lets the email layout height shrink or expand based on the height of the copy from one email to the next. Note, however, that Outlook 2007 ignores background images.
• If it works better, use the padding style to control margins within a TD cell. The margin style does not work in these cells. Padding does work.
• If a border around a TD cell is needed, Google Mail displays a border when defined in a DIV but not when defined as a border style in a TD tag.
• If a light colored link against a dark background color is needed, put the font definition in the TD cell (so it applies to P and A tags equally) then add a color= style to the A tag.
• If the P and A fonts appear to be different sizes, wrap the A tag in a P tag.
• Google Mail aggressively uses the right column of their interface which squeezes the html email into the center panel. Be sure the padding style in the content TDs is set at 10 pixels all round so text does not smash against the left and right edges.
• When testing an html email with a Google Mail account, it is likely one or more missing font styles in the TD, H1, H2, P, A, and other tags will be found. Inspect every font carefully to make sure Google Mail displays the fonts correctly.

Besides Google Mail, another hazard programmers face when coding email is less obvious: LotusNotes. Many large corporations continue to support and upgrade their Notes installations. As of 2004, IBM reported that 95 million people used Notes. Unfortunately, it is impossible to tell which companies use Notes. So code html emails as described in this article. The more primitive the code, the more likely it will work well, if not perfectly, with Notes.

That said, it is quite possible that Notes will introduce quirks that beggar belief, for example, converting images to their proprietary format. Or Notes will simply ignore flawless basic html in one email but display other html fine in another email.

Here is what apparently helps Lotus Notes display html email:

• Use a frame table that contains all the internal layout tables, for example, for the header, content, and footer. This keeps the email together in one chunk of html. Pieces of the layout are less likely to wander when displayed in Notes.
• Create a gutter around the frame (wrapper) table by setting the width to a percentage and/or using the cellpadding to at least 5.
• Don’t use a style declaration in the head tags. It is the proper way to code to standards, but Notes (like Google Mail) might delete your styles. Rely, instead, on inline styles within the TABLE, TD, H1, H2, P, A, and other tags.
• Use absolute URLs to images stored on a web server. Notes cannot be prevented from converting images, if it does, but using remote images might help.
• Intra page jumps, using named anchors, rarely work in Notes, if ever. It is best to avoid links that jump down the email to a specific piece of content.
• Avoid colspans in the HTML table layouts. Notes apparently only handles basic table layouts, especially older versions of the software.
• Be sure TD cell widths have accurate widths. Unlike web browsers, which automatically make all cells the widest defined width, Notes sizes each TD cell based on its defined width.
• Centering an email layout usually does not work in Notes. Email layouts will have to be left-aligned.

Using these techniques for Google Mail and Lotus Notes also will ensure your emails display fine in Outlook 2007 with its older HTML rendering engine. Microsoft has published details about what their email software will and won’t display properly (see Resources below for the link). And the Email Standards Project has additional details. They also lobby companies like Microsoft to improve their products.

The bottomline with Outlook 2007, LotusNotes, and Google Mail is that it requires coders to make sure their HTML email code works across most email software. That means simple, standards-compliant code works best in most if not all situations.

Many people who receive email prefer HTML over text for any number of reasons. For programmers, however, the task of coding an HTML email appears both simple and horribly complex. Hopefully this article has described many of the issues and coding strategies that work across email software so that you can code HTML emails effectively.

What is the best idea to take from this article? If there is a choice to be made between a simple coding solution and a more complex solution, simplicity always works better.

Frequently Asked Questions
How to Create HTML Email in Outlook?

The basic approach is to create your html email as a separate html file and then create a signature file and use your html email as the signature file. Then you open a new email message and add the new signature file. This prevents Outlook from helpfully converting all your precious html code into text.

To create a signature file in Outlook:

1. Select Tools from the top menus, then Options, then the Mail Format tab in the Options pop-up that will appear.
2. Down on the lower right of the Mail Format tab is a Signatures button. Click that button and a Create Signature pop-up will appear.
3. Click the New button on the Create Signature pop-up and a Create New Signature pop-up appears. Give your new signature a name and select Use this File as a Template and browse to your HTML email.
4. Then create a new email message, click in the body of your email message, select Insert from the mail dropdown menu and Signature then your new signature file.

People usually ask this question because they want to send html email from their internet account. Don’t. Unless you know every person on your email list, too many bad things can happen if someone tags your email as spam. If you send email through your business domain name, for example, all your email will be tagged as spam. And you will be left to figure out how to get off any blacklists. Even if you know everyone on your list, your internet provider may have a limit to how many messages can be sent and may boot you off their service. It’s far less hassle to pay an email service provider to deliver your email and worry about spam blacklists.

How to Use Background Images in GMail, Lotus Notes, and Other Services

Using images as a background in an html email is problematic. The old way is to carve up your image and divide it among HTML table cells and rows. You also can put the image in a new html table that encases all the table rows and columns that would display parts of your background image; sometimes this achieves the same effect as cutting an image up but with less code and better results. However, Outlook 2007, Google Mail, Lotus Notes 6, and Live Mail do not display background images. Be sure to test your email code with your target email software. Whatever you do, be sure your email design degrades nicely if and when the background image does not display. If you use white text, for example, against a dark image, make the default background color a dark color.

How to Create Anchor Links in an Email

Like image backgrounds, links within an email do not always work. You should test first. Over the years, I have cracked open a few emails with intra-email links and find they use the basic HTML anchor tag to link to a defined name= bookmark. The only oddity I’ve seen is the addition of shape=rect in the anchor name code, as in, But this was in an email full of images.

How to Add Video to HTML Email

It is difficult but possible to add video to your html emails. Campaign Monitor has a great article, “HTML5 and video in email“, that covers all the steps to make video available within email software clients that can display video while degrading well for email software that cannot display video in an html email. Their article includes test results across many email clients, as well as comments with more insights and results.

Where to Learn More

Besides the EblastMagic Website and this article, these online resources should be very helpful:

Email Standards Project: Probably the best start point for understanding exactly how different email software complies with HTML and CSS. They also maintain an acid test they use to compare compliance across email software. And you can participate to help improve standards.

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Best Practices for Success in E-Marketing

March 22nd, 2010

As you may know, most people now spend more time reading their emails than they do surfing the web. Email is one of the most powerful mediums that you can use to talk to visitors, customers and prospects.

In this article I will discuss 15 best practices that you can use everyday in your email marketing activities. Used wisely and consistently, there’s no doubt you’ll see an increased response from your subscribers — whether it be for more feedback, more product/seminar registrations, or even more orders.

1. Avoiding the Spam Filters
The majority of large Internet service providers now use rigorous spam protection mechanisms to trap unsolicited email before it gets into their customers inboxes. Spam filters generally “rank” each email by a number of different criteria, and, if that email rates above a certain level (such as 10 spam points), then it is flagged as spam and deleted.

To make sure your emails don’t get flagged as spam — and deleted before they even get to your subscribers — avoid using words such as ‘Free’, ‘$$$’, ‘Save’, ‘Discount’, etc in both the subject line and the content of your email.

2. Maximizing Click-Thru Rates
Both web pages and emails can contain a lot of text and graphics, and this sometimes makes it harder to get your subscribers to perform a certain task, such as clicking on a link to see your special offers.

Numerous research papers tell us that the majority of Internet users respond better to a plain, bold, blue text link — such as this — as opposed to a banner or button. So, if you’re going to include links in your emails, make sure they are bold, blue and underlined. This will mean that more subscribers click through, meaning more conversions/sales for you.

3. The Power of Personalization
If you were standing in a crowded mall, which of these would get your attention: “HEY, YOU!” or “HEY JOHN” (assuming your name is John). The power of personalization can and should be used in your emails. In-fact, by simply starting your email with “Hi [subscriber_name]” instead of the dull “Hi there”, you can increase both your reading and click-thru rates by up to 650%. Why? Place simply, it’s because your subscribers feel like they already have a relationship with you as you’ve addressed them by their first name.

4. One-Click Unsubscription
If you want to grow your mailing list, then there are 2 things that you absolutely must have: a double opt-in process, and a quick way to unsubscribe. In some countries, it’s really mandatory by law that every email has an unsubscribe link in it. The unsubscribe link should take the recipient directly to a page where they are then removed — courteously — from your mailing list.

5. Signup Confirmation
Don’t get accused of spamming — always, and I mean always use a double opt-in confirmation process. Double opt-in means that after your visitor initially enters their email address to subscribe to your list, you should then send them a “confirmation” email. This email should contain a special link back to your email-marketing program, which will then verify that this visitor did indeed sign up to your mailing list.

6. Tuesday / Wednesday = Increased Response
Studies conducted by online research analysts have shown that the best days to perform a mail-out to your list are Tuesday and Wednesday, as this is when people are more receptive to communication. This means that they are more likely to read your content and click on links, meaning more sales.

On Mondays, everyone is still recovering from a hectic weekend. On Thursday and Friday, people are already too busy looking forward to the weekend. We’ve really experimented with this, and received the best results by sending out emails at around 2-3pm (American Pacific Time) on a Wednesday.

7. Repeat Email Communication
An auto responder is an email that is scheduled to be sent at a certain time interval after someone subscribes to your mailing list. Auto responders are a fantastic way to automatically follow up with your subscribers or provide them with more information on your products/services.

For example, if you provide a free newsletter, you could setup 3 auto responders for new subscribers: the first is sent 1 hour after they subscribe. It contains a thank you message and a link to get 10% off your newly released eBook.

The second is sent 24 hours after they subscribe, telling them about your community message boards, and the third is sent 72 hours after they subscribe, in which you can offer them a special deal on becoming a paid member of your site.

Auto responders help your subscribers build trust in both your company and your brand, and this can help make it simpler when trying to close sales in the future.

8. Consistency is the Key
If you’re running a newsletter or frequent email publication, make sure you keep the look and feel consistent from issue to issue. By keeping the look and feel consistent, you help to maintain and strengthen your brand and your image to your subscribers, which again will make it simpler to close sales when you need to.

Make a template for your newsletter and whenever you need to make a new issue, use that template as the basis for each issue.

9. On Time, Every Time
When sending a regular email to your subscribers, always make sure that it’s sent on the same day, at the same time. For example, every Wednesday at 3pm. Your subscribers will come to “expect” your email to arrive in their inbox on the same day at the same time every week, meaning that they want to read your content and are generally more receptive to any special offers or promotions you may include.

10. The Half-a-Second Subject Line
When your email arrives in your subscriber’s inbox, you generally have about half a second to catch their attention with the subject line of your email. After this, they will either delete your email or ignore it. In your subject line, try and specify a benefit that the subscriber can expect by reading your email. For example, instead of using ‘OurSite Newsletter Issue #1′, use ‘OurSite Newsletter: 10 Tips for Financial Freedom’.

11. The Free Bonus Hook-In
Free is overused these days, especially on the Internet. But, if you’re looking to grow your subscriber list, then make or source a product of value to your visitors (such as an eBook or discount coupon) and offer it to them for free when they signup for your newsletter.

To make sure they don’t simply type any email address into your subscription form, setup an auto responder to send them the free bonus 1 hour after they subscribe to your newsletter.

12. The Preview Pane
Well loved email clients such as MS Outlook show a preview of an email when it’s selected in your inbox. Always have some fascinating content at the very top of your email, as this is the part that will show in the preview window of your subscribers email program. If it’s fascinating enough, then your subscriber will open your email and continue on reading.

13. Link-Click Testing
When making marketing emails, try using different text for both content and links. Also try re-positioning images such as logos and buttons. After sending about 3 different emails, compare the click-thru stats and see which one worked best. Now, when you need to send marketing emails in the future, you know that you will be sending the right mix of content and images that will attract the most click-thrus, and ultimately the most sales.

14. Email-Based Learning
Add value to your website, build trust in your visitors, establish your credibility and collect more subscriptions to your mailing list by setting up an email-based learning course. To do this, simply make a series of auto responders (for example, 5) containing unique content. Then, schedule the first one to be sent after 24 hours, the second after 48 hours, etc.

15. Always Sign on the Dotted Line
Always include a signature at the bottom of your emails, as it’s one of the simplest ways to attract more traffic to your website. This signature should include your personal details, your company details, and an unsubscribe link. You can use your signature to link back to your website, and even to other products. Here’s a sample signature:

Regards,
John Doe.
President – Company XYZ.
Visit our website at http://www.companyxyz.com
Unsubscribe from this newsletter at http://www.companyxyz.com/unsubscribe…

Conclusion
By implementing the 15 best practices described in this article, you can take your email marketing to a whole new level –- attracting more subscribers, and building both your brand equity and credibility at the same time.

Tags: Emarketing
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Why Use Custom HTML Email Templates?

March 18th, 2010

Correspondence via e-mail is gaining prevalence today like never before.

 

Email is a faster and easier way to be in touch with your friends, associates, colleagues, customers, and clients.

 

For everyday communication with your good friends, ordinary and even rough-and-ready fashioned messages are right. But this approach will not work when you intend to send out business or promotion emails to your existing customers or prospects.

 

The days of the plain text emails seem to be left behind. HTML-formatted messages are now receiving far more attention. They have more appealing visual elements, and an improved overall look and feel. The quality of design of HTML newsletters is reportedly growing in importance. This doesn’t mean an organization needs a full-time designer poring over every outbound HTML message; however, a well-designed newsletter now seems justified. You don’t have to be a technical wizard to create an eye-catching HTML newsletter anymore.

 

We’ve done almost everything for you. Eblastmagic E-Mail Templates come with preformatted designs and image placeholders. Simply replace the text with your own message content and insert your own images.

 

You can also make alterations in the font size, and color of the template text, add your links, and text paragraphs. You can personalize every template to create the look of individually prepared message for each recipient.

 

The templates also make it easy for you to insert your unique images either from the disk or web site.

 

Eblastmagic Templates save your time allowing you focus on the content of your message rather than the format, increase efficiency of the mailing campaign, and can be easily used by anyone who sends e-mail.

 

Feel free to browse our Free E-Mail Templates.

 

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EblastMagic is here to help…

March 18th, 2010

EblastMagic is a service provided by DesignElementsUSA to help you to format, deliver and report successful E-Marketing Newsletters that help to strengthen your brand and drive customers to your website, product or service.

Studies have shown that E-Marketing or Email Marketing is the most effective form of advertising available today, and it’s acceptance and usefulness is growing every day!

Dinosaurs like the Yellow Pages, Print Advertising or Annoyances like Tele-Marketing and many other forms of media-based advertising just cannot compete in today’s digital age.

See for yourself the many benefits EblastMagic by Design Elements USA has to offer and get in touch with us by using the forms at the top of every page..

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Communicate more information, more often!

March 18th, 2010

Email marketing is an affordable way to stretch a tight marketing budget.

It can cost as little as fractions of a penny per email!

With a response rate five times greater than direct mail and 25 times the response rate of banner ads, email marketing is the most effective way to increase sales, drive traffic and develop loyalty.

Unlike direct mail, there is virtually no production, materials or postage expense.

So, with email marketing, you can easily and afford-ably create more communications, communicate more effectively that are valued by your customer, and you can make those communications support and enhance your brand in a way that substantially differentiates your company from the competition.

Your communications can include newsletters, preferred customer promotions, sale notifications, new service announcements, event invitations, greetings and more.

Posted in Email Marketing, Tips and Hints | No Comments »

Eblastmagic pricing

March 12th, 2010

Only pay when you send emails!

When you use Eblast Magic pricing is really very simple — you only pay when you send an email campaign to more than 5 people.

• Low server/database setup charges
• No monthly costs
• A flat fee of $10 plus 5 cents per message recipient.

“For each campaign you send with more than 5 recipients, you pay a flat fee of $10 plus 5 cents per message sent or per recipient.
Any campaigns you send to 5 or less people (ie:testing) are free of charge”

Cost Example:

Let’s say you’re sending an email newsletter to a database of 1,000 subscribers.
To send this newsletter, you will be charged $10 (campaign Send Fee) plus 5 cents for each recipient( $50 in this case), making a total of $60.

We here at Eblastmagic.com would like to welcome all of you to our new Email Marketing Campaign blog.

We will be discussing trends in Email marketing, tried and true technologies, emerging technologies and how they all relate to your success in Email Marketing.

Be on the lookout for HTML Email Design Tips, Free HTML Email Templates, resources that offer products and services that will help you build better Email marketing Campaigns and much more.

We look forward to hearing your comments,  sharing our ideas and tips, and to a long and successful journey into the exciting world of  HTML Email-based marketing!

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