Submitted by: denise cox on Mon, 22/01/2007 - 15:16

I have just finished reading the Email Experience Council’s newly-released “Email Rendering Report 2007″.  

A few of the takeaways I got from the report:

• So many email platforms so little time to check the rendering! The experts suggest narrowing it down to what your audience uses and ensure those platforms are rendering your email correctly. And implement a regular testing process.
• Image blocking is now part and parcel of email marketing. People *do* know how to turn the images on and off. And they do know how to turn them on permanently from specific addresses and companies. Smart marketers will spend time making sure their main point gets across in text and entices the reader enough to make them want to turn images on.
• The Preview Pane is a well-used feature by B2B customers – this one surprised me. The report says the majority of subscribers to B2B email newsletters use the preview pane function. The implications The main message of the email needs to be visible in the 2-3″ window pane. The challenge is to do this without disturbing the layout of the rest of the email when it’s opened in a full window view.
• Don’t forget to make the text version of your messages look good! The Report says they’re seen by at least 15% of subscribers on a list. I imagine this will become even more important with the growing usage of mobile and handheld devices.
• PDAs, Blackberrys and other mobile email device usage is growing. This is particularly true in Europe. There are new rendering issues we’ll face with these handhelds vs. the traditional email clients that marketers have been working with up to now.
• Having a good email reputation can improve rendering. Among the things marketers can do to achieve a good reputation is by following industry best practice, keeping email servers white listed, reviewing the coding in the emails and having a high subscriber recognition of your brand and emails. The report offers other great tips.

One Response to Email Rendering – A hot topic for 2007

Alan Hume says: January 22, 2007 at 4:54 pm

I think some of these issues are discussed in the forums section on dot email. http://www.dotemail.com

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