Ezine Deliverability and Usability

As you look for which trends to follow in 2006, here are (3) quick email newsletter design trends that you should consider paying attention to:

1) Design for Email Deliverability.

Assuming you have a smart email list hosting service provider that is helping you achieve and track your actual email deliverability performance, one of the primary elements that you can control (besides good permission practices) is your email/ezine design template. What tweaks can you make to improve your emails ability to enter and stay in the inbox of your recipients? How does your ezine render in various email clients such as Outlook, Lotus Notes, Eudora, AOL, and Hotmail/Yahoo/Gmail?

2) Design for Usability.

When you notice that your Mom has a Blackberry, your sister or brother has a Treo 650 and you sport one of those handheld email downloading, reading and sending cell phone gadgets, …it’s then that you know it’s time to begin finding ways to deliver your message to an increasingly mobile email recipient.

3) Design for Readability: Readers That Only Review Your Emails in the Preview Pane and Block Images.

I don’t read any of the thousands of emails that slide through my PC in a preview pane, but the rest of the world seems to be moving in that direction. There are times when I look at an ezine that I sent out that was replied to by a member who is asking a question and I get to see how my ezine rendered to them in a completely different way than I had sent it out. Wake up call time.

Not ready to address this? Then start by simply adding ALT-TEXT to your images so that your readers can see your text when the image gets blocked.

There is no silver bullet, but if you give just 10% more attention to improving your deliverability, usability and readability — You will be rewarded with a more responsive list membership. :)

Email Newsletter Marketing Expert, Christopher Knight invites you to get your FREE weekly dose of Email newsletter publishing, marketing, promotion, management, email-etiquette, email usability and deliverability tips by joining the Ezine-Tips newsletter: http://www.emailuniverse.com/subscribe/

[tags]ezine deliverability,email deliverability,ezine-tips[/tags]