• Don’t rely on background images. Outlook2007, gmail, Lotus and others, give no background image support at all, so any information you have placed there will be lost. Some clients (gmail, yahoo, windows live) support images applied to tables, but not to the body; however, outlook 2007 does the exact opposite so you have to plan accordingly.

• Tables are ‘in’ again. Although only for email marketing, tables are a great way to structure your HTML emails and get them to work on as many email clients as possible. Use nested tables instead of divs to place your content to get better results. Set all available attributes of the tables where possible.

• Make sure your text is readable. Again, remember you may not have the support of a background image to ‘contrast’ colors in your content. For example, using white text because your background image is dark will not work. Once the client renders your HTML, if the image is removed your recipient will not be able to read the white text on a white background.

• Provide a link to view the email in a web browser. Keep-InTouch® does this for you automatically! All of your emails are hosted on a web page that your recipients can link to by clicking a small header link we include on all outgoing messages.

• Use ‘alt’ tags on images. Remember that there is no real way of making sure your contacts are watching your images, so a nice, descriptive ALT tag on each image is your best chance to get them to download or enable your images. Always make sure to put these tags on the most important images, you don’t have to place them on filler images.

• Be careful with styles. Some popular email clients ignore code inside head tags. Use inline styles when coding your CSS and do this frequently, as parent styles might not work down to all of its children. Links will also be rendered differently unless you specifically and carefully apply detailed inline styles to them. Use spans for distributing your space vertically.

• Don’t exceed 600px width. This ensures that recipients with even small resolutions (pocket PCs, laptops, etc,) will be able to read your emails without much scrolling. Design for small spaces.

• Keep it light. Remember that your recipients get tons of other emails so keep yours to a max of 20kb. Attachments add a heavy burden to marketing emails so make sure to keep them to a minimum or, better yet, to none.

Why do I need permission?
The Federal Trade Commission has ruled that sending people unsolicited email is against the law.

What are the definitions of “Permission-based” contacts
Contacts who have signed up or “opted in” through your web site to receive more information from you, whether by form or check box.
Contacts who gave you their business card and asked to receive correspondence.
Contacts who have made purchases from you within the past 2 years.

Who is off limits?
Lists or email addresses received from a third party provider.  This includes lists bought or rented or received through membership.
Addresses you collected from the Internet (via copy/paste) or through an automated “bot”.
Addresses you haven’t emailed in the last 2 years