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Bad HTML Can Reduce Your Emails Effectiveness

In recent years many email marketers have avoided HTML emails fearing deliver-ability issues and lower response rates. But HTML emails only create problems when they are coded or designed the wrong way. HTML problems can easily be avoided by using a system like ours which handles the coding for you. Once your template is set up by our developers it is tested and verified against stringent guidelines to make sure it is clean and suitable for sending. So there's no excuse to not send great looking emails!

Nailing Your Subject Line...

Here's some tips on creating stunning subject lines for your emailshots and enewsletters:

1. Remember there's only 50 characters visible when the email drops in the inbox and sometimes shorter depending on how people configure their desktops so you've got to be punchy
2. A great place to learn about the art of writing great subject lines is to scan the newspapers, they've developed the art over many years of drawing people in to read the stories.
3. Focus on the call to action, if you want to get people opening the email then give them the incentive up front
4. Don't leave the subject line to the end of the process, it should be the beginning, when you start the process of creating each and every campaign you need to decide why you're sending the email and that should drive the subject line
5. Make sure your from address works with your subject line, ensure they're not repetitive and use the word count as effectively as possible
6. Be compelling - you only have a few seconds to draw people in to reading the email, especially in the early days of starting an ongoing campaign when people may be new to your brand
7. Used with care and caution personalisation can make a difference too, using it in the subject line has some risks attached but should be considered
8. Create some urgency, if using an offer to drive interest put a deadline around it to drive people through to your web site
9. Never mislead your audience, they will pay you back with unsubscribes in their droves and it will ultimately damage your brand!
10. You can use words like free, but carefully, they will pass through spam checkers as long as they are not repeated, capitalized, at the beginning of the subject line or followed with an exclamation point. [Using our spam checking facility will cover you here]
11. What you can measure you can improve, using our content checker software will enable you to maximise your deliver-ability. Checking your stats and looking for successes and best practice within your own campaigns will also help you to improve your results.