We’ve talked a bit about tips for avoiding the spam box when doing email marketing and now we’d like to expand on that. Once your email makes it into the inbox, (yaaay!) what can you do to ensure that it still maintains the design you created and looks good for the user? Here are a couple of tips to keep that e-blast looking pretty:

5 Eblast formatting tips:

1. Create the plain-text version of your HTML email and send them off as a bundle.
The plain-text emails are more likely to get through spam filter, even the extremely aggressive spam filters. Also, they are ones that get displayed on mobile devices. Do not use Microsoft Word. Instead, you need an application that gives you raw text files such as TextEdit or Windows Notepad.

2. Use alt-text for your images.
Most web-based email clients will not display email images immediately, due to their spammers protection. Web designers should spend sometimes inputing alt-text with all you images. It should describe what the image is about and get people interested to see it.

Don’t input your important information into image, always use text for the truly crucial stuff. You can also ask your clients if they are willing to pay for email certification. This sometimes get your emails to the inbox with all images ON by default.

3. Don’t embed Flash & movies. And, don’t use JavaScript or Activex.
In the past, these have been used to spread viruses so, they’re blocked now by most anti-virus applications. If you want to share an awesome animation or movies with your recipients, send a link to a landing page or a site. You also can create a gif or jpeg graphic in your html email that links to another site.

4. Be careful with CSS and DIVs.
This one is for you, programmer. You should know that not all CSS positioning will work and that DIVs break in email applications. You can design with CSS for simple font formatting, but don’t expect it to always work.

5. Be aware of the email footer requirements.

Permission Reminder helps you avoid the “Why do I get this email?” moment.  Everyone needs protection, and this is where Privacy Policy comes in handy. Privacy Policy can be generated on the Direct Marketing Association website. To that point, an opt-out link is always necessarily. You should include an opt-out link in the email header so that it’s easy for people to remove themselves from your list which is better than having them click on the “junk” button. Finally, make sure you have forwarding & social media sharing options. This helps you spread the word to those who aren’t already subscribe to your email marketing campaign.