WhatCounts White Paper - Top 10 Best Practices

TOP 10 BEST PRACTICES For Crafting an Effective and Reusable Email Template

TOP 10 BEST PRACTICES

Copyright © 2012 WhatCounts, Inc. 3630 Peachtree Rd. Toll Free: 1.866.804.0076 2 All Rights Reserved. Suite 900 Email: [email protected] Atlanta, GA 30326 Website: www.whatcounts.com

THE PROBLEM: THE ENDLESS CYCLE OF CREATIVE PRODUCTION

One of the biggest challenges facing email marketers today is the endless cycle of

creative production. By the time one campaign is out the door, you are already behind

on the next one. Though many email marketers use some form of templates, often these

templates are designed in a way that prevents the necessary flexibility to adapt to new

business requirements or strategic advances, and so need extensive rework. Often, it is

simply faster to start over and create yet another new template.

Unfortunately, under this scenario, one often has barely enough time to work on the

next campaign, much less think strategically and plan for the long- term. There are a

number of possible contributing factors that prevent email marketers from breaking this

cycle including:

• Limited Resources mean that you

have to focus on your immediate needs

versus working on long-term strategic

programs

• Lack of Flexibility within your

current templates usually result in you

having to rework or start over in order

to support a specific campaign objective

• Inability to Personalize or incorporate dynamic content prevents you from

taking advantage of the best way to send relevant and targeted emails

• Errors most often occur when time is tight and corners are cut

• Costs and Inefficiency are immediate by-products when constantly creating

new assets to support your current email campaigns



THE SOLUTION: FLEXIBLE AND EFFICIENT TEMPLATES

One of the most important steps any marketer can take to shift the focus from the never-

ending cycle of creative production to long-term strategic planning is to utilize flexible

and efficient templates.

By creating a library of reusable templates to meet your long-term marketing needs, you

will be taking the first critical step necessary to have more time to build new programs,

test and analyze in order to maximize the potential of the email channel.

There are ten key recommendations to keep in mind when crafting a template solution

designed to meet your long-term marketing needs.

YOU HAVE TO CHANGE BAD BEHAVIORS! The first four recommendations are closely related, but are in many ways, the most

important ones that must be embraced before jumping into the strategic and design

phases of creating a new template.

GIVE YOURSELF TIME

ANALYZE YOUR PAIN POINTS

CONSIDER THE BIG PICTURE

THINK MULTI-PURPOSE

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To do this right, you have to give yourself enough

time to identify your needs; ensure all appropriate

contributors are able to identify their needs and

provide feedback; and are looking at your long-term

needs — not just the next quarter. It is also helpful

that you review where there are issues whether in the

production process or in the templates themselves so

they can be addressed accordingly.

Email marketers often work with very tight timelines, but it is important you treat this

as a long-term investment and set the appropriate expectations. You should plan on the

process to take at least six weeks, if not more, start to finish.

FOLLOW BEST PRACTICES

One of the first mistakes many marketers (or their creative partners) make is not fully

embracing the reality that the email channel is different than the web and print

channels.

The email channel is very unique with its own standards and limitations. Therefore, it is

important that everyone working on a new template understands and applies current

email best practices appropriately.

LEARN YOUR ABCS!

• Acknowledge the current creative limitations of the email channel

• Believe best practices are best practices for a reason — implement, test, repeat

• Customize to meet your brand’s objectives, testing results and production

realities

“Having a library of reusable

templates will allow you to

spend more time testing and

building new programs to

maximize the full potential of

the email channel.”

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CAN’T LOSE CLASSICS

• Email width set between 550 - 600 pixels

• Quick links in header for immediate engagement

• Mixture of system text links and graphic calls to action throughout email

• Social media push — forward to a friend, social media outlets, SWYN,

progressive profiling, surveys

USE FLEXIBLE MODULES

The use of flexible modules, also known as a modular template, is a template innovation

designed to provide maximum flexibility whether creating different layouts for your

promotional campaigns or supporting multiple lifecycle marketing programs.

A modular template is a series of pre-designed and formatted HTML content modules

that can be:

• Removed

• Rearranged

• Repeated

With a modular template, instead of creating series of different templates, you create

one master template that takes into account all your content and program needs.

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THE RECOMMENDED MODULES INCLUDE:

• Pre-header

• Header

• Main Navigation

• Primary Navigation

• Secondary Navigation

• Tertiary Message

• Banner

• Alternate Navigation Bar

• Recovery Zone

• Footer

The number of modules will vary according to your

needs. The best way to identify and layout all the

possible configurations is to use wireframes that can

be used later as a blueprint in the design process.

This will help facilitate the design process and reduce

the overall time required.



DESIGN FOR ABOVE THE FOLD

There are multiple challenges to overcome to help ensure a campaign’s success aside

from deliverability and inbox competition including image blocking, preview pane

limitations, and mobile device rendering. By designing for the above the fold range,

which is 300-500 pixels from the top left corner both vertically and horizontally, you

will help ensure your emails are read and acted upon.

One quick test for every email is whether a recipient can quickly answer the following:

• Who are you?

• What do you want?

• Why should I do that?

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The use of a system-text pre-header is the easiest and most effective tool to help answer

these questions and overcome the challenges noted above.

A great pre-header should include:

• Engaging teaser system text statement with an underlined system text CTA (Call

To Action)

• View online & view mobile version prompts

• Safe sender prompt for welcome messages

Ideally, the pre-header is placed at the very top of the

email and aligned to the left so it is above any

blocked image and not cut-off by the right side of a

vertical preview pane. Also, make sure it is not white

or other light colored system text. Otherwise, you risk

the pre-header not being legible should the

background color be removed by the email client.

“It takes only a few seconds for

email recipients to decide if the

email is worth taking a closer

look - and over 50% decide not

to scroll.”



Several additional considerations to keep in mind when reviewing design layouts

include:

• Email recipients take a few seconds to decide if email is worth taking a closer

look, over 50% of the recipients decide not to scroll

• People generally read left to right, top to bottom

• Readers click all over the place including non-clickable areas (so make sure all

non-structural template graphics including supporting imagery, icons and

especially your logo are clickable)

• The first paragraph is usually the most read so make sure this always focuses on

your primary message and call to action

• Recipients don’t usually read entire sentences or headlines so use bullets when

possible

DESIGN FOR THE Z-CURVE

Great email design not only looks aesthetically pleasing while incorporating current best

practices, but works on a subconscious level to guide readers to critical content and calls

to action. This is accomplished by designing the template and laying out the content in a

way that naturally flows with the reader’s eye movement (left to right and back) using

the “Z curve”.

It is essential to include visual cues to clearly indicate your calls to action and

incorporate interrupters to draw the reader’s eye to important content and offers.

Always remember, if a recipient has read through your email, but has not taken an

action, assume he or she is interested, but has not found anything to click on yet.

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INCORPORATE A RECOVERY ZONE

Though a well-designed above-the-fold area can make a critical difference, there is

another worthwhile opportunity at the often-neglected bottom of any email right above

the footer content. The inclusion of a recovery zone is a great way to engage recipients

that otherwise might be missed!

The benefits of a recovery zone

include:

An effective and thoughtful

recovery zone should include:

• Showcase more up-sells

• Promote other marketing

channels

• Highlight customer service

resources

• Promote other brands,

partnerships or associations

• Reinforce the brand

• Navigation links

• Customer service details

• Social media options

• Promotional content

• Logo

RECOVERY ZONE EXAMPLE

“The inclusion of a recovery

zone is a great way to engage

recipients that otherwise might

have been missed.”

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CODE FOR EMAIL

A very common error that can have serious rendering and deliverability consequences is

coding an email template according to current web standards such as XHTML. Utilizing

the older coding standard HTML 4 is your safest bet and is likely to work with almost all

email clients.

Another trick is to use the current limitations of Outlook 2007 as your guide. If it works

in Outlook 2007, chances are it is going to work almost everywhere else!

• No Flash or other plug-ins (a red “X” shows where the Flash would display)

• No background images (HTML and CSS)

• No HTML form submissions

• No JavaScript event, such as mouse-down

• No CSS floats and positioning

• With the exception of color, CCS background properties are not supported — this

includes background-attachment, background-position, background-repeat, and

background-image

• No replacing bullets with images or unordered lists

• No animated GIFs (only first frame displays)

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SUMMARY You have to give yourself time to get it right versus just getting it done. By analyzing

your long-term campaign and program needs, you can then craft a best practice

template solution that will make a positive impact on your bottom-line. Improved

results and less time in the creative production process will mean more time to be

strategic or even give yourself a break!

ABOUT SHAW + SCOTT

As a WhatCounts services partner, Shaw + Scott is a digital communications agency

with an award winning team of strategists, designers, copywriters and technologists

dedicated to the interactive web, social and email channels. We offer a full suite of

strategic, creative and technical solutions to help manage your digital campaigns and

programs. Our award-winning team offers a rare blend of creative excellence, strategic

vision, technical knowhow and business sense that seamlessly comes together to deliver

highly customized, targeted solutions tailored to your brand, marketing objectives and

production realities.



ABOUT US

WhatCounts, a private Atlanta-based company

founded in 2000, is a leading email technology

innovator offering a fully integrated lifecycle

marketing platform supporting dynamic and targeted

content delivery, robust segmentation, API and

transactional capabilities as well as integrated video

and social media tools.

WhatCounts offers deliverability management,

strategic coaching, best practices benchmarking,

CRM integration and advanced analytics facilitating

ROI maximization.

The robust WhatCounts platform is delivered as a

hosted Web-based SaaS application and as part of the

unique Broadcaster on-premise appliance line.

WHATCOUNTS, Inc.

3630 Peachtree Rd. Telephone: 404.995.8600

Suite 900 Toll Free: 866.804.0076

Atlanta, GA 30326 Fax: 404.995.8611

www.whatcounts.com

Email: [email protected]

ATLANTA • BALTIMORE • CHICAGO • SEATTLE • SYDNEY • WASHINGTON DC

http://www.whatcounts.com/

mailto:[email protected]

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WhatCounts White Paper - Top 10 Best Practices