Why Email?
- For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 (some say closer to $45).
- There are 3X more email accounts and than there are Facebook and Twitter Accounts combined.
- 72% people prefer to receive promotional content through email, compared to 17% who prefer social media.
- 90% of email gets delivered to the intended recipient’s inbox, whereas only 2% of your Facebook fans see your posts in their News Feed.
- The average click-through rate of an email campaign is around 3% (of total recipients), whereas the average click-through rate from a tweet is around 0.5%.
Word Processed Email
One Big Image Email
Red X of Death
Collage Email
Collage Email on iPhone
CAN-SPAM Act
- Must have "affirmative consent" from recipient.
- Must be easy for the recipient to opt out.
- Must provide a valid email return address.
- Must provide a physical address.
- Cannot disguise an advertisement as a personal email.
- Cannot offer a reward for forwarding.
The Challenge of HTML Email
- Email Client — Device — Browser — Operating System
- No support for <script>.
- Images in HTML emails must be hosted, not attached.
- No support for <link>.
- No support for <style> in Gmail.
- Limited CSS properties.
We’ve made the decision to continue to use Word for creating e-mail messages because we believe it’s the best e-mail authoring experience around.
— Microsoft, 2009
Lack of Standards Support
- <section>, <article>, <div>, <p>
- "colspan" and "rowspan" for tables
- Multiple classes on HTML elements
- Complex CSS selectors and CSS layout properties.
- Can’t use shorthand for things like color & font-size
Code Like It's 1999
- Layout using tables for positioning.
- Simple, inline CSS.
- Styling via HTML attributes.
Document Type Declaration
- Should I use a doctype? Which one?
- Short Answer: Use the XHTML 1.0 Transitional doctype.
Responsive Meta Tag
HTML Email
But What About Media Queries?