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Search results for 'HTML newsletters'

Smarter newsletters with targeted content

Posted by mathewp on October 29, 2008

Most businesses start out their email marketing efforts by sending the same message to all their subscribers. It's easy, and it often gets great results. The next step beyond a one-size-fits-all approach is to be smarter about what content you send to each person. Today I received an email that...

Posted in Articles/Tips1 comments so far

Australian research shows email still dominates

Posted by mathewp on October 23, 2008

Following on from yesterday's post about the relative popularity of RSS and email, the Australian Communications and Media Authority has released a study on internet use by Australians. The report, Telecommunications Today Report 6: Internet Activity and Content, examines consumer adoption of the internet and the impact this is having...

Posted in Observations & Answers

RSS not replacing email yet

Posted by mathewp on October 22, 2008

For web designers and developers, email can seem a dreadfully old fashioned way to spread information. I've spoken to plenty of people who tell me that RSS is going to take over and email will be dead soon. There is no doubt that for some types of information, an RSS...

Posted in Articles/Tips5 comments so far

Manton Reece talks email marketing with Campaign Monitor

Posted by mathewp on October 16, 2008

Campaign Monitor is targeted quite narrowly at web designers, something that came about because Freshview was originally a web design agency. There's a big skills cross over between designers and developers though, and we know a lot of you guys are doing a bit of both. So recently, when...

Posted in Interviews & Case Studies

4 years of Campaign Monitor

Posted by mathewp on October 2, 2008

ul.numbers { list-style-type:none; font-style:normal; color:#333; margin-bottom:40px; margin-top:40px; } ul.numbers li { clear:left; margin-top:10px; vertical-align:bottom; line-height:200%; background:#ededed; padding:5px; } ul.numbers span { font-weight:bold; font-size:200%; font-style:normal; color:#036ea4; display:block; float:left; clear:left; width:80px; text-align:right; padding:0px 10px 0px 0px; } Four years ago this week was the official launch of Campaign Monitor, the email...

Posted in Observations & Answers11 comments so far

37signals on improving email design

Posted by mathewp on September 23, 2008

Over on Signal vs. Noise, Jamie Dihiansan has written about his approach in evolving the email marketing and triggered messaging design for 37signals' products. Often the job of designing emails is seen as a one off task- build it once and it is triggered off and sent for ever...

Posted in Email Newsletter Design

Embedding images revisited

Posted by mathewp on August 28, 2008

In a recent post we discussed our (poor) results from testing embedded images in email. A couple of people pointed out a different method we could use that may produce better results. So we've run through our tests again, this time with the image as a Base64 encoded attachment to...

Posted in Articles/Tips7 comments so far

Using conditional comments to target Outlook 2007

Posted by davidg on July 23, 2008

The clever team over at SitePoint recently discovered a neat way to target Microsoft Office, and most importantly Outlook 2007 using conditional comments in your CSS. For those new to the concept, conditional comments are a Microsoft only technique historically used to target specific versions of Internet Explorer. For example,...

Posted in Articles/Tips14 comments so far

Differing approaches to a t-shirt newsletter

Posted by mathewp on June 26, 2008

The Freshview team are big fans of t-shirts, so much so we even have Campaign Monitor shirts available. So we're always on the lookout for cool new shirts, and the local postal workers must get sick of delivering shirts to us. HTML email newsletters are a great way to publicise...

Posted in Email Newsletter Design2 comments so far

CSS support in mobile.me email?

Posted by mathewp on June 10, 2008

Although the majority of the Freshview team slept blissfully through the WWDC keynote, we were all interested to hear about Apple's new Mobile Me service, which will replace .mac in July. Once Apple's new web applications are up and running, we'll be sure to thoroughly test the .me email...

Posted in Observations & Answers3 comments so far

2008 Email Design Guidelines

Posted by mathewp on May 21, 2008

As web designers, we’ve grown pretty good at understanding how to create a modern, semantic, accessible website using XHTML and CSS. We understand what makes a good website, and how to make it happen. When it comes time to design emails though, do all the same rules apply? Are there...

Posted in Articles/Tips27 comments so far

New feature: Let your subscribers manage their own email preferences

Posted by mathewp on May 8, 2008

Have you ever had one of your subscribers change their email address, and ask you to update it for them? In the past, they either had to get you to do it, or unsubscribe themselves and resubscribe. Or have you had subscribers who are happy to hear about your toy...

Posted in New Features & Updates13 comments so far

How 37signals uses Campaign Monitor - an interview with Jason Fried

Posted by davidg on March 13, 2008

For most of our readers, 37signals need no introduction. As long time Campaign Monitor customers (they were our 41st customer way back in 2004), I chatted with founder Jason Fried about how they use email to market their products, their recent switch from plain text to HTML emails and plenty...

Posted in Interviews & Case Studies4 comments so far

Making it easy for your Hotmail recipients to unsubscribe

Posted by davidg on September 17, 2007

We mentioned a few months back that the Hotmail folks were about to launch a very cool new feature that allowed your recipients to unsubscribe directly from the Hotmail interface. As you know, if a subscriber no longer wants to hear from you they've got 2 options - mark it...

Posted in New Features & Updates2 comments so far

How to personalize your permission reminders

Posted by davidg on September 13, 2007

When you make a business call, you don't just launch right into the conversation without introducing yourself, right? Instead you say something like "Hi, I'm Mathew, we met at the Widget Summit and you asked me to give you a call". You should do just the same with your email...

Posted in Articles/Tips

Why we need standards support in HTML email

Posted by davidg on September 5, 2007

This is a post I've been meaning to write for a long time now. I've been delaying it purely because I wanted it to be perfect. I wanted to write with Zeldman-like virtue on why email, just like the web, needs to pay attention to web standards. Sadly, in the...

Posted in Articles/Tips84 comments so far

Small design tweaks can get big results

Posted by mathewp on August 10, 2007

Have you ever had a client who insists on having everything in images, so it 'looks exactly right'? It can be hard to convince them of the impact of image blocking and filters on image heavy emails. Next time it happens, you'll have some more ammunition on your side...

Posted in Articles/Tips2 comments so far

Plain text templates to save you time

Posted by mathewp on July 30, 2007

You spend a lot of time crafting your HTML newsletter, tweaking the layout from a previous edition or adding new sections. Then you get to the text entry field, and have to layout the same content again under much greater constraints. To give you some ideas about how plain...

Posted in Articles/Tips

30 free great looking HTML email templates

Posted by davidg on July 2, 2007

Ensuring your emails look awesome across every major email client out there can be a lot of work. To make your job that little bit easier, we've just put together 30 free email templates that look fantastic and have been tested in all the major email environments. Not even Outlook...

Posted in Articles/Tips12 comments so far

Add inline CSS to your web version, unsubscribe and forward to a friend links

Posted by davidg on May 22, 2007

If you're used to coding your email newsletters for Gmail, you're probably an expert on inline CSS by now. As our recent CSS research highlighted, Gmail doesn't support the <style> or <link> element. This means if you want your links to be in a size 11 font and a light...

Posted in New Features & Updates17 comments so far

Designer Interviews: Needmore Designs

Posted by davidg on May 11, 2007

Today we're talking to Kandace Nuckolls, founding partner of Needmore Designs, a Portland based design firm that's been using Campaign Monitor for themselves and their clients for more than 2 years. We asked Kandace about how she pitches email marketing to her clients, charges for her services and even the...

Posted in Interviews & Case Studies

Image Blocking in Email Clients: Current Conditions and Best Practices

Posted by markw on February 16, 2007

Many people, either by email client defaults or personal preference, are blocking images in the HTML-formatted messages they are accepting. And then there are a small number of people who block HTML entirely. As David Greiner points out, according to a study by Epsilon Interactive 30% of your recipients don’t...

Posted in Articles/Tips52 comments so far

Microsoft takes email design back 5 years

Posted by davidg on January 12, 2007

As I type this post I still can't believe it. I'm literally stunned. If you haven't already heard, I'm talking about the recent news that Outlook 2007, released next month, will stop using Internet Explorer to render HTML emails and instead use the crippled Microsoft Word rendering engine. Now c'mon,...

Posted in Articles/Tips514 comments so far

Getting opt-in permission offline

Posted by mathewp on December 20, 2006

Professional trade show presenter Heidi Miller based a recent episode of her "Diary of a Shameless Self Promoter" podcast around the concept of email newsletters and spam. Heidi, who collects a lot of business cards through her work, had mentioned previously that she was considering taking email addresses from those...

Posted in Articles/Tips8 comments so far

Designer Interviews: Fresh Tilled Soil

Posted by davidg on December 7, 2006

Today we're talking to Richard Banfield, founding partner of Fresh Tilled Soil, a Boston based design firm whose fantastic email designs have been featured on a number of ocassions in our email design gallery. We asked Richard all about making the transition from web to email design, pitching and pricing...

Posted in Interviews & Case Studies7 comments so far

Designer Interviews: Catch Design

Posted by davidg on November 15, 2006

Welcome to the first in a series of mini interviews we plan on publishing in the blog over the coming weeks. Over time we'll be bringing you more of these casual chats with the aim of giving you an insight into how others use Campaign Monitor, pitch email marketing to...

Posted in Interviews & Case Studies

Optimizing for Gmail's snippets and Outlook's AutoPreview

Posted by davidg on October 25, 2006

Inspired by Jeanne Jennings great write-up on designing emails for Gmail's snippets and Outlook's auto-preview, I decided to run a few tests of my own. First things first, a Gmail snippet is that small chunk of light grey text immediately following your email subject in the Gmail inbox. It usually...

Posted in Articles/Tips23 comments so far

Making the most of your unsubscribes

Posted by davidg on August 18, 2006

Yesterday we highlighted some great tips for welcoming new subscribers to your list, so today we thought we'd look at the flipside. Stefan Pollard just put together some great suggestions for getting the most out of anyone leaving your subscriber list. As you know, Campaign Monitor requires a single-click unsubscribe...

Posted in Articles/Tips1 comments so far

Another reason to add a text version when you send HTML emails

Posted by davidg on August 7, 2006

Even when you're sending a HTML email to your subscribers, it's always a good idea to include a text version with the email. There are a few benefits to this approach, which I'll highlight later, but I recently came across a great case study on MarketingSherpa that highlights another reason...

Posted in Articles/Tips8 comments so far

Can I include a print stylesheet in my campaign?

Posted by davidg on June 21, 2006

We recently had a few customers approach us about print stylesheet support and whether or not they can include them in their campaigns. We weren't sure either, so we did some testing to get to the bottom of it once and for all. What is a print stylesheet? Quick background,...

Posted in Articles/Tips2 comments so far

Gallery: River City Church Newsletter

Posted by davidg on March 21, 2006

Everyone at Campaign Monitor was a huge fan of this monthly newsletter sent for the River City Church by Jacksonville based Livingston & Partners. They seemed to have ticked every box in our recent design guidelines, including: Link to a web-based version of the email in the header. All important...

Posted in Email Newsletter Design1 comments so far

"Am absolutely LOVING Campaign Monitor"

Posted by davidg on February 4, 2006

"Just sent a large campaign and am absolutely LOVING Campaign Monitor. Stats are fantastic, client login feature is outstanding. Pricing is excellent. Because of Campaign Monitor, HTML newsletters are no longer the red headed stepchild of marketing." Krista Stevens, Dispatch Design and Editor in Chief of Digital Web Magazine...

Posted in Happy Customers/Press

The truth about flash in email

Posted by davidg on January 11, 2006

A while back we wrote about the perils of using Flash in your email newsletters. Our verdict - don't do it. To this day, we still get emails asking about any workarounds we might know of to get Flash working in email. Occasionally we even get a more aggressive email...

Continue reading "The truth about flash in email" »

Posted in Articles/Tips73 comments so far

Gallery: Connectpoint Focus

Posted by davidg on December 28, 2005

We loved this snappy monthly newsletter sent by Manchester based Connectpoint. It breaks all the rules, but still manages to suck you into finding out more about each of the featured stories. As you can imagine, the click-through rate for each of their newsletters is very high. My big suggestion...

Posted in Email Newsletter Design3 comments so far

Email Design Guidelines for 2006

Posted by davidg on November 30, 2005

Check out the updated 2008 email design guidelines As 2005 draws to a close, I thought I'd take the opportunity to outline what I think are some of the key email design trends and guidelines that we should all be paying attention to now and into the new year. This...

Continue reading "Email Design Guidelines for 2006" »

Posted in Articles/Tips66 comments so far

New Feature: Linking to a web version of your campaign

Posted by davidg on September 23, 2005

While the majority of web based email environments are slowly improving their HTML rendering skills, some are still pretty far behind. I'm talking to you Hotmail and Gmail. Because of this, it can be a good idea to include a having trouble reading this email, click here link in the...

Posted in New Features & Updates9 comments so far

"Campaign Monitor blew my socks off!"

Posted by davidg on June 29, 2005

We've just received a great review from the brand new WorkHappy.net blog - a growing resource of cool tools and resources for web professionals. "It's going to be hard to explain the ecstacy I experience each time I use this service. For years I've been trying to find the perfect...

Posted in Happy Customers/Press

Using Flash in Email Newsletters

Posted by benr on May 7, 2005

I'm sure a few of you have come across this scenario before - you're putting together a newsletter for a client and they want to jazz it up by adding some flash to the email. You might be left wondering, is that going to work?...

Continue reading "Using Flash in Email Newsletters" »

Posted in Articles/Tips21 comments so far

Maximum width for HTML emails

Posted by davidg on April 12, 2005

You've probably noticed that the majority of email newsletters you receive these days are designed with a fixed width as opposed to a fluid layout. This is because the majority of email clients and web-based email providers don't use the full width of your screen to display an email message....

Posted in Articles/Tips24 comments so far

Email Newsletter Design Resources

Posted by davidg on April 5, 2005

We've been seeing some great looking email newsletters being sent through our software of late. This got us thinking... are there any good resources out there that email newsletter designers can turn to for inspiration and insight? We've been looking around for a few days and haven't come up with...

Posted in Observations & Answers10 comments so far

Using style sheets in HTML email newsletters

Posted by davidg on February 11, 2005

Update: Mark has published a comprehensive follow up to this article which takes a more accessible approach and includes a sample template to help you get started. Most people who've attempted to recreate a sophisticated design in HTML email have run into a wall when using CSS, either in the...

Continue reading "Using style sheets in HTML email newsletters" »

Posted in Articles/Tips16 comments so far

Formatting plain text emails - the 4 golden rules

Posted by davidg on December 16, 2004

Just like HTML emails, different email software will display your text-only emails in different ways. While there is no guarantee that your emails will always be displayed as intended, there are a few golden rules you can follow to ensure that the outcome is as close as possible to your...

Continue reading "Formatting plain text emails - the 4 golden rules" »

Posted in Articles/Tips5 comments so far

New feature: Display past campaigns on a client's site

Posted by davidg on August 20, 2004

A good way of convincing new subscribers to join an email list is to give them access to previous campaigns or newsletters. This is now as easy as copying and pasting one line of code on your client's web site. You also have complete control over the formatting, sort order...

Posted in New Features & Updates1 comments so far

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