Lost in translation.
It’s quite possible that you don’t give a pixel’s tint about how an email campaign gets programmed, distributed or tracked. But you should. By understanding how your company’s campaigns are received, you can up the quality and universal experience for your audience.
In between you and a successful email campaign lie factors that could replace your intended message with frustration and confusion. Here are three common email episodes we’ve overheard recently, and a few considerations to keep in mind should you find yourself on the receiving end, or in the midst of one of these headaches one day.
“I was excited to see our latest email blast go out, but when I called to followup with our client Jan, she wasn’t sure what I was referring to. After further discussion, we realized she had received the email, but wasn’t seeing exactly the same thing on her screen as I was on mine.”
Not everyone sees what you see. There are thousands of email clients used to read and write email (an email client is what you use to check email—a desktop application like Outlook or a browser-based/webmail solution like Yahoo). Plus, the devices used to access email are just as diverse. Best practice is to build your email campaign to look and function the same on the widest gamut of devices and email clients. Avoid using multimedia or other functionality that may abandon some of your audience (a quick search on email standards will get you headed in the right direction).
“I can see the pictures in my home email address, but when I sent a test to my work address I couldn’t see any of them-neither could Chris in accounting.”
A picture is not always worth a thousand words. Several email clients have the ability to block images and it’s typically a security setting that can be changed in the preferences. A large percentage of spam relies on viewing images in an email, so it can be a necessary security feature to have (in most cases there’s an option to load those images that get blocked). Important messaging should be within the text portion of the email as opposed to text embedded in an image. If an image is key to the message, make sure concise alt tags are used (this is the text you may see if an image doesn’t load) so that the message isn’t lost, and maybe it’ll even trigger them to load the image. If images seem to disappear when an email gets forwarded, try using the “forward to a friend” link (good idea to have one) within the email rather than your email client.
“We just sent out our latest email campaign, but several people I know who got it said they found it in their junk mailbox.”
Welcome to the spamily. It’s quite possible that something in the email triggered a spam alert. The best way to prevent this is to know who will be sending stuff your way and add them to your list of approved senders. Check within the help menu of your email client if you’re not sure how to do this. It’ll help ensure that you don’t miss something important down the road. If you’re on the sending end, let the recipients know what email address to expect messages from so they can also add it to their approved list.
We know we’ve just scratched the surface, and if you’d like to share your episode, join the conversation by adding a comment below. Staying aware of how others experience email can help you understand your audience and make better decisions with your email campaigns in the future.
Written by Jeremy Elder, Interactive Designer at Introworks.
