27 New HTML Email Templates
by Justin Premick on June 30th, 2008Many of our customers like to use HTML emails to send vibrant, branded communications to their subscribers. (So do we, for that matter.)
But creating a great-looking email can be challenging, especially if you’re not a designer and/or (like me) just aren’t an artist by nature.
That’s why we created our original HTML email templates — to help you spend less time on design, and more time on the content of your emails (not to mention the rest of your business).
Today, I’m excited to announce a new series of attention-grabbing HTML email templates, available for your use right now in your AWeber account.
Continue reading “27 New HTML Email Templates”
Comments: 25
3 Tips For More Clicks and Website Traffic
by Marc Kline on May 2nd, 2008Sometimes our emails are focused on a single goal, aiming the entire message at driving to a specific landing page.
Other times when our purpose is more general, it makes a lot of sense to take a broader approach, aiming to get our subscribers back to nearly *anywhere* on our website. We can let them choose their own adventure from there, hoping they’ll eventually complete a site goal (e.g. ordering, membership sign up, etc.).
For those times, here are 3 techniques that could significantly boost your click through rates back to your website:
Continue reading “3 Tips For More Clicks and Website Traffic”
Comments: 45
Improve Your HTML Email for Gmail Subscribers
by Marc Kline on April 16th, 2008This has been bugging me for a while.
Before sending, I test our blog newsletters to Gmail, along with other popular clients (generally a smart thing to do).
By and large, the messages tend to look fine, outside of one detail that might seem minor to some but meaningful others who spend some time thinking about optimizing emails for best results.
Take a look at a few of the recent tests in my inbox and see if you notice what I’m seeing:
Continue reading “Improve Your HTML Email for Gmail Subscribers”
Comments: 22
Learn From a Great Email Newsletter Example: Kayak
by Justin Premick on April 2nd, 2008
After ripping apart some poor email examples, I think it’s high time we point out someone who’s doing an email newsletter right.
I’ve been getting emails from travel planning site Kayak.com for a couple weeks. In each issue I’m impressed by their email savvy, from content to design to the little extras that make me so likely to use them to plan my trips.
Why do I like Kayak’s emails — both as an email marketing guy and as a subscriber — so much?
Continue reading “Learn From a Great Email Newsletter Example: Kayak”
Comments: 28
Award-Winning Autoresponder Series: What’s Working?
by Justin Premick on March 11th, 2008MarketingSherpa announced their 2008 Email Award winners recently.
These are always a great place to look for innovative ideas as well as proven/tested tactics that you can use to improve your own email marketing campaigns.
Out of all the award-winning emails they present (and there are a lot!), I was particularly drawn to the best automated/autoresponder series category.
Let’s take a look at what’s working well for companies running autoresponder series…
Continue reading “Award-Winning Autoresponder Series: What’s Working?”
Comments: 1
Here’s An Easy Way To Do Video Emails
by Justin Premick on January 30th, 2008Videos are a great marketing tool — they get your prospects’ attention, they let you show (not just tell) about your products, and they get passed around (helping you to get more subscribers virally).
However, as many people have found out, creating “video emails” by embedding the video directly in an HTML email (like you would on a web page) doesn’t fly. It’s simply not reliable because most email programs disable or strip out the video.
But that doesn’t mean you can’t take advantage of video’s appeal in your emails!
You just have to get a bit creative…
Easily Send “Video Emails” Using Image Links
In a recent addition to our Knowledge Base, we’ve shown step-by-step how to drive your email subscribers to watch videos that you’ve posted to your site or video hosting sites like YouTube.
A Couple Pointers
I recommend using an image to link to your video — you can use text, too, but the image will naturally draw the eye and increase your response.
That said, not all of your subscribers will have images enabled in their email programs.
So, remember to put appropriate ALT text for your image, so that if they have images turned off, they know there’s a video to click to.
Example:
Have You Used This Tactic?
Has linking to videos this way worked well for you? Have you learned anything along the way that you think our readers could benefit from when creating their own video emails?
Share your thoughts below!
Comments: 27
What Can Barack Obama Teach Us About HTML Email?
by Justin Premick on November 7th, 2007As an individual? Probably not much. But as a marketing example, possibly quite a bit.
A couple months ago, we posted about a possible compromise in the Text vs. HTML debate.
Inspired by a MarketingExperiments study on formatting, we discussed the idea that not all HTML was created equal, and that you might improve response by using a “Lite” (or if you prefer, “Text-y”) HTML — taking some advantage of HTML’s formatting flexibility while preserving much of the overall simplicity of Text.
Continue reading “What Can Barack Obama Teach Us About HTML Email?”
Comments: 3
Text and HTML: Why Not Both?
by Justin Premick on September 25th, 2007
Just when you think a hotly-debated topic like whether to send messages in plain text or HTML has died down, along comes another angle to look at.
This time, the folks at MarketingSherpa bring us a case study from minor-league baseball where a combination of Text AND HTML messages boosted ticket sales over 260%.
So how do you incorporate this new data into your decision to use Text or HTML?
Continue reading “Text and HTML: Why Not Both?”
Comments: 10
Should I Use Text or HTML?
by Justin Premick on May 3rd, 2007We field a lot of questions from customers about the pros and cons of using HTML in your messages.
Like them, you may not know the major pros and cons of sending a multipart message (Text/HTML) versus sending text-only emails.
There are a lot advocates on both sides of the fence when it comes to Text and HTML.
In my experience everybody tends to focus only on the pros of what they do, and the cons of what they don’t. You rarely get a balanced view.
So… right here, today, let’s size ‘em up:
Text. HTML. Toe to Toe in the Ring.
Somebody get Don King on the line.
Continue reading “Should I Use Text or HTML?”
Comments: 45
HTML Emails: How To Use Images Effectively
by Justin Premick on August 14th, 2006HTML messages offer several advantages to senders:
- they can be customized to include colors, formatted text and tables
- they enable the sender to track message open rates
- they allow the sender to hyperlink words and phrases rather than typing out full URLs
However, many email programs by default block HTML images from being displayed, including the following popular software and web-based email clients:
- Microsoft Outlook
- Mozilla Thunderbird (unless sender is in Personal Address Book)
- AOL (for non whitelisted senders or sender IP’s not on the enhanced whitelist)
- Yahoo (for messages that Yahoo’s SpamGuard believes are spam)
- Hotmail (for messages in Junk folder)
- Gmail
If your messages are image-heavy, image blocking can cause them to look significantly different than the way you envision them. It can also cause your open rates to appear artificially low, since if images are blocked, the image used for open rate tracking is blocked.
What Can You Do?
Continue reading “HTML Emails: How To Use Images Effectively”
Comments: 16
« Previous Entries
Email Tips.
Delivered.
Popular Topics
affiliates blog newsletters call to action Case Studies confirmed opt in content ideas design email authentication Email Deliverability email newsletters email statistics email web analytics examples from line holiday marketing HTML email templates ISPs list building marketing calendar multichannel marketing New Features personalization recommendations relevance rendering rss to email scheduling spam complaints split testing strategy subject line targeting testing thank you page traffic unsubscribes usability video email web formsSearch the Blog
Recent Comments
2865 S. Eagle Rd. #338
Newtown, PA 18940-1560, USA
Toll Free: +1 877-AWEBER-1
Copyright © 1998-2008
Reproduction Strictly Prohibited.
All Rights Reserved.
Privacy | Anti-Spam
Email Marketing Tips
Get More Subscribers With These 3 Popup Form Split Tests - ( 10/9/08 )A Well-Done "Change of Address" Email - ( 10/3/08 )
Restaurant Marketing: 5 List-Building Ideas - ( 10/2/08 )
