HTML Newsletters Tips

E-Mail Creative Checklist 2

Work with someone who takes the time to understand the business objectives when you are crafting your newsletter. I'd rather spend an hour on the phone with a designer going over campaign goals than a half hour doing a thumb-nail layout. The former approach yields better, more creative results. Be sure the designer understands e-mail and the online environment. One publisher I know used an in-house design team to create a Web site as a companion to its glossy publication. Great idea, until it realized each page took a ridiculous amount of time to load. What works offline doesn't necessarily translate well online or to e-mail. Don't get hung up if a designer doesn't code HTML. Having someone else code the design is inexpensive. It's well worth the small additional cost if your designer has a great feel for online design but prefers to work in Photoshop. Focus design efforts on areas that give you the most bang for your buck.

These include:

• Headers, especially those featuring a brand or logo
• A colored background behind a small but important part of the e-mail message to distinguish it
• A signature graphic, to make the e-mail appear more personal
• Don't spend your limited graphic allotment on things that don't help get the message across or that could actually damage the campaign.

• Colored wallpaper or a background behind most of the text. It's often a spam-filter trigger and makes e-mail harder to read.
• Cutesy icons instead of bullet points.
• Graphics not absolutely essential to your message.

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How Can I Make My Heading Less Ordinary?

To make your heading more memorable (recognizable), you might want to angle the logo type and illustration across the top left corner of your newsletter.

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Surveys Done Right: 5 Tips For Good Response

E-communications is all about interacting with your audience and providing them with news and information that they want and value. With e-communications services like those offered by eNewsBuilder.com or Engagemail.com, you can learn what your readers are looking for in an indirect way by analyzing the extensive activity reports provided. You can also get this information in a more direct way, simply by asking your readers to tell you what they think in a survey. eNewsBuilder.com or Engagemail.com offers you the opportunity to survey your audience in two ways – either the format of a quick poll (for a single question) or a questionnaire (for multiple questions).

For the Best Results… You may have tried surveys before, but were disappointed with the results. The problem might lie not with those who are responding but in how the questions were asked. If you have had the opportunity to work with a research firm before, you know there are proven techniques that researchers use to build the questionnaires in order to get the best response. We've taken some of the best survey practices and put them into the tips below so that you can start getting the results you want from your surveys.

1. Choose the type of question you ask carefully. Ask yourself this question before you start putting your poll together: Is the question important to you…or to your readers?
2. Write the question carefully. A question that isn't asked properly is a missed opportunity. You want to ask the question in a manner that elicits responses that are meaningful to you.
3. Choose the answers wisely. Taking the question on spending a step further, wouldn't it be more helpful to you to know how much of an increase in budget will occur, rather than just knowing that there will be some sort of increase?
4. Think succinctly. Like with any e-communications, you want to build your questions and answers in the most succinct manner possible. Using a few carefully chosen words will provide you with more success than lengthy questions.
5. Increase your response by incenting your reader. If you have a very loyal, interested audience, then you should experience good response rates from your surveys. But if you have a diverse group of readers and need to work a little harder to capture their attention, you might want to think about adding an incentive to the survey.

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Making the Jump from Print to an Email Newsletter

Making a transition from one process to another can be hard and a bit scary, even if you think it's for the best. When you or your organization is making the transition from printed newsletters to email newsletters, it can seem like a daunting task. But it really doesn't have to be that way. Email newsletters are far easier to create, save lots of money over print and postage, and can be tracked. Feedback is fast, efficient and some might even say fun. You can know who has opened the email, what the most read articles were and which links were clicked on the most. You can do interactive polls and surveys to immediately engage your members and find out what they really think!

Members can even update their information like address, phone, email, etc. All of their modifications are downloadable in Excel spreadsheet format to more easily integrate with your system. Imagine… no more printing costs, no more postage costs and no more wondering who read it or who didn't. Try doing that with a printed newsletter. Email newsletters can do so much more for so much less, that it just makes sense to consider the transition; eNews Builder can help you make it a success.

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