Get HTML E-Mail Opened
If HTML e-mail is a necessity, follow these steps to get your message opened.
If HTML e-mail is a necessity, follow these steps to get your message opened.
I got a lot of feedback about last week’s column in which I reviewed Guy Kawasaki’s new book, “The Art of the Start.” Much of it expressed concern about Kawasaki saying he discards all HTML email as spam. To be honest, I admitted I do so as well.
Some readers were not only concerned, but alarmed, asking, “How will we send our enhanced, graphics-rich email?!” Some of you asserted, “Our customers want HTML mail; they like getting all the bells and whistles.”
I don’t doubt that.
Consider this: Bigfoot Interactive recently rolled out an “Add to Address Book” campaign, in which it provides customers with creative and a choice of seven different industry-relevant templates. The aim is to get subscribers to add senders to their address books, helping ensure email is delivered, not binned by the spam filter.
One reason to educate users about the need to add trusted senders to their address books is the fact AOL and MSN don’t display HTML in email from unknown senders by default. Gmail doesn’t display HTML even from known senders by default. If you aren’t added to the address book, chances are users don’t see your HTML pretties anyway. Really, how many customers have specifically added you to their address books?
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Most email programs give users the option to display HTML or not. Some of these don’t display HTML by default.
An informal poll I conducted reveals very few people accept, and display by default, HTML mail. Perhaps it’s just the people I hang out with, but you may want to think about this next time your HTML open rates are abysmally low.
What should the savvy, concerned email marketer or other commercial emailer do with respect to HTML mail? I propose the following:
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