Your emails look terrible. Sorry, someone had to say it. The design is incongruent (whyyyyy would you put a CTA there? Really?), your logo is pixelated, and what's up with the text looking all funky and being so small that I need to put on my grandma's reading glasses?
The Merits of Good Code in Email Marketing Campaigns Post Highlights:
- Plain Text Email Campaigns VS Email Code Campaigns
- The Advantages of Email Coding
- Good Email Code VS Bad Email Code
- Email Coding Best Practices
- Set Off With a Professional Email Developer
- Final Words
Plain Text Email Campaigns VS Email Code Campaigns
Traditional email campaigns are too… traditional, if you ask me. I mean, with all of these amazing tools at the ready, why send an email with plain text? It’s pretty limited and unattractive, don’t you think? Sure, there’s a time and a place for everything, but the benefits of creating beautiful, well-coded emails outweigh the capabilities of plain text emails nine or more times out of ten.
Imagine receiving an email message with an interesting layout, a cute font, and a nice evocative image instead of a conventional text-only email. Just the thought of an image-laden message is so much more appealing, isn’t it? Well, that’s how your clients feel too.
I know, throwing yourself into the lion’s den of coded emails is not quite your thing, but it can be because that’s where the dough is, mark my words. Now, don’t start panicking yet, because this article is about to give you smack dab what you need to be on the right list.
The Advantages of Email Coding
- The email design has a visual impact on the customer, leading them to open and actually browse through the message, with a strong chance to click on that appealing call-to-action;
- Email html code is much more effective and generates more conversions than a simple text-based email;
- Email developers have access to tracking tools that allow them to keep record of the progress of their ongoing campaigns or to access the results of completed campaigns - thus, they can come up with better strategies for their future ones;
- The compact form of a html email is much more engaging, reliable, better structured, and less time-consuming for the subscribers than plain text emails.
Good Email Code VS Bad Email Code
Good code is hard to come by - trust us, we’ve been in the business a while. We’ve seen the good, the bad, and the ugly. A great design can make or break your customer’s reaction to your value proposition, but without equally great code to support it, your rockin’ design is nothing more than a fancy PSD saved to your hard drive. That said, there’s good code, and then there’s bad code.
Good Code
- provides you with faster load times, so your customers don’t have to wait to see what goodies you have in store for them;
- is mobile-responsive so that it looks amazing no matter what device it’s viewed on - Android, iPhone, that old tablet you got for Christmas 6 years ago, or your fancy new computer.
Bad Code
- works on only a handful of devices;
- takes ages to load (enough time for your customer to think about your competitor and their swanky UI), and even worse: sometimes it doesn’t even work at all.
Email Coding Best Practices
- Keep it simple - choose a simple layout and an even simpler design. Sometimes, less is more, so do not load your design with distracting, unnecessary elements;
- Do not underestimate the power of words - visuals are nice, but do not forget about the initial message you wanted to convey to your clients; make sure the text is coded as web text instead of embedding it into an image. That way the information remains intelligible and logical even when images are off;
- Make your email visible from any device or email client - mind the fact that subscribers use different gadgets and different email clients; make sure your emails are fully visible by choosing the right height and length for your template compatible with any device or email client;
- Use a simple email framework - a rule of thumb: first the image, then the text, a visible CTA, and finally the footer; those features should all accommodate within a template that is visible from any device or email client;
- Choose a theme related to your brand - adding your logo is not enough, the entire theme should mirror your brand’s image through the chosen colors, layout, and even font;
- Add an appealing CTA - use an attractive, straight-to-the-point text that urges the client to take action;
- Add images, photos, or illustrations to the text - make your email more captivating with a suggestive image; be mindful about the ratio of the image, as it can end up blocked or spammed by some email clients -an 80 to 20 would do. As for the text, no more than 200 words per one image are enough to generate a decent number of clicks. Consider adding an ALT tag (alternate text) to your image in case for some reason the picture cannot be displayed;
- Add videos to the text - instead of images (or even together with an image), videos make an email even more interactive and descriptive. Still, not any type of video is supported in emails, so we recommend embedding videos with html5, the most robust option supported by Apple email, Outlook, Samsung, and iOS. Make sure you test its functionality before clicking ‘send’;
- Personalize your footer - include at the bottom of the template your contact information and some secondary sharing links, privacy options, maybe an ‘unsubscribe’ button. Footers lend credibility to a brand precisely because they come as a justification for the presence of that email in the client’s inbox. Keep it clean;
- Avoid using background images in newsletters - some email clients might not have the option of displaying background image attributes, so you are better off without them.
Set Off With a Professional Email Developer
Fortunately, you don’t need to learn how to code just to be able to send out emails to your user base - there are experts out there who are more than happy to breathe life into your design (like us!) and take it from a gorgeous file to a living, breathing email.
To ensure that your messages or site work every time for every user, it’s very important to test, test, and then once you’re done testing, test some more. No two browsers are alike, no two inbox providers are alike, and most importantly, no two devices are alike. Here at CodeCrew, we rigorously test each and every email, page, functionality, and process to ensure that not a single stone is left unturned when your money and customers are on the table - this is our guarantee.
For each and every creation of ours, we want you to feel at ease, so we won’t just tell you that your site or email looks good on X browser or Y email client, but show you actual testing results to ensure that you’re seeing exactly what your customer sees, each and every time.
Final Words
Putting the fate of your brand in the hands of someone you’ve met online can be nerve-wracking - we want you to know that your precious assets are handled with the care they deserve, by people who love what they do. Contact us today to learn how we code, meet our crew, and see how we can make your program even better. Speak soon!
