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E-mail Marketing - HTML E-mail Design Guidelines
Horizontal Width
E-mail designs should span a maximum width of 600 pixels with
a median of 550 pixels. Most users have screen resolutions
set at 800x600 with a 17" monitor. Also consider the
Outlook Shortcuts and Folder List panels in Outlook taking
up 25 percent of the horizontal screen real estate, and web
mail systems such as Hotmail and Yahoo with their navigation
and advertising sidebars. A 600 pixel wide design works well
in a 1024x768 resolution situation. If printing is a concern,
the maximum width should be 468 pixels.
File Size
When creating a layout for e-mail, the total size of all images
and the HTML file should be no more than 20-40K. Creating
designs that are simple with sparsely placed images will aid
in maintaining a small file size and quick download time.
Design Limitations
Avoid designs that implement a flush left and/or top alignment.
Web-based e-mail clients such as Hotmail, Yahoo and AOL Mail
put a 10-20 pixel margin on the left and top of the e-mail
message. This offsets the e-mail from any window borders,
ruining a flush design. Position key content within the first
300 pixels from the top. Most people view messages in the
preview pane of their e-mail client. This window is normal
in length, but very short in height showing only the first
few inches of the document. Key content items to consider
positioning at the top are: Subscribe form or link, forward
to a friend, publication information, call to action and the
most important textual content. In a marketing sense, the
content at the top of the e-mail should intrigue the user
enough to read further into the message.
Additional Items
- Subscribe Instructions.
- Unsubscribe Instructions. Generally located at the bottom
of the document. Includes the subscribed e-mail address
of the user for reference.
- Date and publication information. Useful for archive purposes
and legitimizing the publication.
- Land-based company contact information. Physical address
and phone. Provides the user with reassurance that the company
is "real" and can be physically contacted.
- Forward to a friend or Recommend to a friend feature.
Take advantage of viral marketing. Can be as simple as suggesting
that the user forward the issue, to a full-featured database
driven forwarding system.
- Copyright information.
Typography
The following are the most preferred fonts for readability
in HTML e-mail:
- Arial
HTML size 3, CSS 14px and print/word processing 12pt
- Verdana
HTML size 2, CSS 12px and print/word processing size 10pt
Questions? Contact Us
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