Bronto Blog

A new project is making waves in the email world. Email-standards.org is a newly launched site that scratches an itch that the email community has had for quite a while now - lack of standards. I don’t need to go much further than some of our own recent posts to prove that this is a hot issue:

• Designing for email certainly can be… - which directly addresses renderability issues between mail clients
• Quick and Easy Surveys - providing an alternative to the html forms which are just unreliable
• Outlook 2007 overview - even though this is a old issue, it’s still very relevant

Instead of being a generic email marketing group, this is a project with one central purpose: to help drive acceptance of one set of standards for email display in clients. Mark Brownlow took some time to pose a few questions to David Greiner, the head of this initiative. Check out David’s responses, they are really on the right track.

So, why is this important to you? As David put it,

…it will save them money and free up their time to focus on the content of their emails, not the coding. If those responsible for designing HTML emails could build them knowing they’ll display consistently across all major email clients, they can dramatically reduce the development and QA time required.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could focus more on email content and less on formatting? If so, check out the site when you have a minute, I think you’ll find it a very valuable resource.

Adam Covati
Product Manager at Bronto

As an avid shopper of Target (I go at least once a week) I can always count on the following: a few special deals sprinkled throughout the store, quality products at a reasonable price, very clean bathrooms (which really does matter), and receiving a gift receipt along with my receipt upon check out. Recently though I was surprised to receive, in lieu of the gift receipt, a very smart email subscription offer at the point of sale.

The receipt (pictured to the right) was handed to me by the cashier and my eye was quickly drawn to the bolded text offer to receive a “Sneak Peak of the 2-Day Sale” by signing up for an email reminder. Now you must envision my reaction as I told the cashier “what a fantastic way to continue to build the brand and relationship by providing this offer in the store and driving me to the site at home to only bring me back to the store.” I think my excitement might have actually thrown the cashier a little - but I knew the power behind this simple and smart messaging.

Upon returning home I immediately fired up my laptop and entered the enclosed URL on the receipt. The sign up process was quick and seamless, and then I anxiously awaited the first sneak peak message to reach my inbox.

In just a few days I received my first New Target Weekly Ad and was gratified with the clear subject line and From Address, as I clicked on the message I was truly filled with excitement to view the sale preview for the coming week.

Sadly my expectations were instantly dashed by viewing basically nothing at all (see the message below):

My mind starting ticking off the missing elements:

• No header text providing an option to view the online version
• No visible text prompting me to right click to download images
• No use of text in the body of the message
• No clear call to action other than: In stores this week: November 11-17, 2007

Frustration set in quickly, as I scanned the bottom of the message the only element that grabbed my attention was unsubscribe in a bright bold red font.

As I shook my head back and forth in disbelief I just kept saying to myself “they are smarter than this - they are better than this”. It killed me to think of someone like my mother, also an avid Target shopper, signing up for this weekly ad special and receiving the enclosed email only to say “this email ad is worthless - I can’t see a thing”.

The careless mistakes made in this message could easily deter novice email subscribers from signing up for any future retail email offers. It is very apparent that no one at Target is viewing these messages from the consumer’s viewpoint. I’m deeply disappointed because I have a passion for this great brand, and looked forward to learning about their special deals. The cross channel marketing from store to site was brilliant but the execution, to be quite honest, was very poor.

Testing how a message renders and understanding the audience who is receiving the message is critical to every email marketing campaign no matter how large or small. I would highly recommend that Target create a consumer email marketing test pool and send all new email campaigns to the pool before a launch. This test pool of consumers will provide an extremely valuable insight into the shopping experience via email.

I truly believe if a test pool had been in place they would have uncovered the missing elements and the message would have exceeded my expectations. So, lesson learned, to protect your brand make sure you test your messages to assure you don’t miss your email marketing target.

Kimberly Snyder
Account Manager at Bronto

Are your email messages delivering brand and design intact? The answer would probably surprise you. In our recent Email Rendering Quiz, marketers were quizzed on how often they were using best practices when designing their messages. Here’s a recap of the responses as well as advice on how to ensure your messages deliver as intended.

• CSS - Only 24% of respondents are currently using inline styles for their email formatting. While embedded CSS or an externally linked style sheet can work, the only widely email client supported CSS is inline styles. Inline styles also provide the flexibility to make variations in style throughout the HTML message.
• Alt Tags - 40% never use alt tags in their messaging. Always add ALT tags to your image tags to ensure the viewer knows its content, regardless of whether the image renders. Using ALT tags also satisfies accessibility issues, conforms to W3C HTML 4.01 specs, and allows the disabled to read and receive their emails.
• Image/Text Ratio - 19% of responding email marketers design their emails with the image as the predominant message. It’s important to keep a balance between text and images. Not only are filters on the lookout for email messages with only images, if images don’t render well within the recipient’s client, your message may be lost. Instead, create a message that balances text and images so that regardless of how the email renders, your message is received.
• Text - We were impressed with the number of respondents that are including a text version, 47% to be exact. We would still like that number to increase, so why not consider multi-parting your message? Now don’t get us wrong, creating a text version is definitely a must. However, most e-mail service providers offer an option so that messages can include both an HTML as well as a plain-text version. When both versions are included, they are sent together as your messages go out. This approach allows you to keep the benefits of formatting and branding.
• Testing - Only 50% of respondents always test their email messages. You should conduct tests for the major ISPs (Outlook, AOL, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.) as well as other email providers that make up a large portion of your email lists. Try making a checklist of items to test: CSS, image blocking, url links function properly, and more.

Interested in learning more, or seeing how your email campaigns render? Take our quiz today!

Sally Lowery
Online Marketing Manager at Bronto

Sometimes at Bronto, the stars align. This week, it all came together…

-On Wednesday, Marketing Sherpa posted a new case study (an emerging trend?) - How to Add Video to Email on a Shoestring Budget & Double Conversions: 6 Steps + 6 Lessons Learned. (We followed most of the steps). Make sure to check out the study today as “open access” ends on 20 Nov 07.

-On Thursday, Kimberly and I taped a live version of BrontoFire - (see last month’s blog post: BrontoFire is Born).

-Today, we are taking a big gulp of the Kool-Aid. BrontoFire: Live, YouTube Style

Tell us what you think.

DJ Waldow
Account Manager at Bronto

Designing for email certainly can be… tricky. Desktop and online email clients render email differently, requiring much more planning and testing while creating a message, than designing and building for the web. At the end of the day, the main goal should be that any contact, no matter how they access your message, will see professional, sharp looking content.

There are many nuances to creating HTML messages, but some here are 4 easy points to remember:

1. Table-based positioning: Email client CSS support is several years behind, so using tables is really the only option to ensure consistent rendering. This might go against every urge you have if you’ve done any proper web-design in the last few years, but
   tables are a must for emails. CSS-positioning just won’t work as most email clients don’t support it. To ensure a sharp-looking message for all your contacts, use some creativity with nested tables and make some minor sacrifices.
2. Inline Style: Web designers are used to declaring the style within the <head> tag, or linking to an external style sheet. Neither of these options will work for email. Most of the online email clients strip out these declarations, which means that you will need to turn these declarations into inline style. For example:
3. Background-images: Most email clients support background images, but Outlook 2007 doesn’t. (See a work around for this.
   This means that if you do choose to use background images, be sure to also set a background color for the same area that fits in with the design to ensure clients receive your content and that it still looks sharp.
4. Testing: We’ve said it a thousand times and we’ll say it a thousand more. Testing is crucial to email marketing, especially when it comes to email rendering. You should test your email in every email client that you can get your hands on. Sign up for the freebies (Yahoo!, Hotmail, AOL, Gmail, etc.) and install the desktop clients (Outlook 2003 and 2007, Thunderbird, Lotus Notes, etc.) and test each message you send to ensure they render correctly. The simple fact is that you might not be able to make
   the message render exactly the same in each email client (especially Outlook 2007), but making sure that the layout looks clean and professional for all of your contacts is crucial to your brand image and reputation.

Based on other trends in email marketing (images being blocked by default for example) take your time to correctly build your message using a good balance of text and images.

Don’t be scared if this may seem like a daunting task. Sure, it might be easier to send out an all-images email then run and hide in a cave, but to make your email marketing program successful you have to work for it!