Twelve Rules to Live By: Tips for Making Your Email Messages More User-Friendly

We asked Jonathan Henke, Lyris' new Usability Engineer, to give us some tips and advice for email marketers. Here are twelve things you should be sure to do in every email campaign you send.

Instead of HTML-only, send multi-part messages. 

With more and more people reading email on cell phones or PDAs, it’s important to have a text-only version of your email. People who can read the HTML version will see it, while those with text-only email programs will get the text version.

Alternatively, you can give your customers the choice by asking them which version they’d like to receive and then segmenting your list to send the appropriate message based on their preferences.

For opt-in email lists, use a “hello” message to confirm people’s membership.

This message should confirm that the subscription has been processed, let people know how often to expect messages from this list, and ask them to whitelist the list’s From address.  The “hello” message can also include information about unsubscribing or changing their delivery options, if appropriate.

Send your regular emails from the same address every time.

If people signed up to receive your messages, they can ensure that your messages make it to their inbox by whitelisting your email address or adding it to their “Safe” list. This prevents the message from ending up in their junk folder, but only if you send from the same address every time. 

Use an informative From name and Subject line.

Users decide which emails to open based on the message’s From address and Subject line.  The From and Subject should include your company name, the name or title of the newsletter (if appropriate), and a concise summary of the contents. But don’t waste valuable space by repeating the company name in both the From and the subject! And don’t use the same subject line for every email – be creative and also give a hint about what’s in this particular message.

Limit subject lines to 50-60 characters.

Different email programs display different amounts of the subject, so be sure that the important information is in the first six or eight words. 

Keep your messages concise.

People rarely read large blocks of text online; they’re more likely to skim. If you do include longer articles, be sure to include clear headlines and concise blurbs, so that people can identify the articles of interest to them. We suggest a limit of 10 words per headline and two to three sentences per blurb.

Make sure your links work.

This seems obvious, but broken links can occur and not everyone checks all their links every time.

Make sure your links don’t expire.

Your email message may stay in people’s email box for some time; if they go back to an article a month or two later, the links should still work.

If you run an opt-in list, include a subscribe link in each message; if people forward the message to a friend, this makes it easy for the friend to join your list.

Put links to subscribe, unsubscribe, or change settings in the fine print at the very top or bottom of the email.

When people look for these links, that’s where they look. This is also a good place for your company mailing address, phone number, and other contact information.

If you send different kinds of messages, run separate opt-in lists.

Some people may want occasional special alerts but not the weekly newsletter; others may want a short tip-of-the-day but not company news. By sending people only what they want, you keep your list members happy and engaged.

If you run multiple lists, each message should identify which list the message was sent to.

This helps people keep track of multiple subscriptions. Reminding people why they’re getting a particular message (and reminding them that they signed up for it) can help build trust and engagement. A fine-print header or footer is a good place for this information.

Contact us at editor@lyris.com to share your ideas. We may include it in the next issue of Making Mail Work!