Resources

1. Design Scannable Newsletters
According to recent study by usability expert Jakob Nielsen, about 50 percent of e-mail readers skimmed or partly read the newsletters. Only 23 percent read the newsletters all the way through. The remaining 27 percent were never opened.

So make the text easy to scan by:
- using short paragraphs
- using bullet points
- including plenty of white spacing between topics
- highlighting topics with uppercase or bold text in HTML newsletters

2. Insert Line Breaks
Improve the readability of your newsletter by formatting it with hard line breaks at 60/65/70 characters per line. You can use a text editor, such as <a href="http://www.textpad.com" target="_blank">TextPad</a>, and set it to insert hard carriage returns at the end of each 65-character line.

3. Include Newsletter Title In The Subject Field
Include your newsletter title at the beginning of the subject field. This will help the reader differentiate your newsletter from junk e-mails. It will also allow them to sort your newsletter into a separate folder with the use of filters.

4. Make Your Subject Field Sell!
Advertise the most enticing story of each issue in the subject field. You literally have seconds to grab the reader's attention, so make it count.

5. Include A Table Of Content
Include a table of contents at the top of the newsletter. This will allow readers to scan the topics to see if anything in the newsletter catches their interest.

6. Fix Long Links
Long hyperlinks may be broken when you format e-mails using hard line breaks at 60/65/70 characters per line.
To fix this problem, deselect word wrap after you have inserted carriage returns. Then manually edit the links to ensure they are on one line. When the e-mail is sent, a link may still wrap onto two lines, but now it will be clickable.


7. Avoid Spam Filters That Flag The "Unsubscribe" Word
Do not use the word "unsubscribe" in your removal notice. A number of spam filters flag e-mails containing that particular word as possible spam. The reason is many spammers now offer "unsubscribe" functions that don't actually do anything.


8. Avoid Spam Filters That Flag Chain Letters
Some spam filters are flagging e-mails that asks readers to forward the newsletter on as chain letters.
Avoid using the word "forward" and any of the following words in the same sentence, "all, anyone, every, friends, many, others, people." Instead of "forward," try using "pass," "share," or "send."


9. Reduce Remove Request E-mails
There are two methods to reducing the number of remove e-mail requests from your subscribers:

Include a removal notice at the top and bottom of the e-mail.
Place the bottom removal request at the very bottom of the e-mail, rather than a few paragraphs from the bottom.


10. Design User-Friendly HTML Newsletters
Most people use an 800x600 screen resolution, but the e-mail preview pane is usually much smaller than the full screen. So format your HTML table widths at 500-600 pixels at the most. Better still, use a relative (percentage) width table, which will allow your newsletter to be resized when viewed in different sized windows.


11. Create AOL Friendly HTML Newsletters
AOL tries to protect their users by eliminating potential security hazards. As such, AOL e-mail clients do not support the following HTML objects:
ActiveX
Audio
External Style Sheets
Frames and IFrames
Java
Meta Refresh
Scripts: JavaScript, Perl, VBScript, etc.
Tooltips
Video

In addition, the following HTML tags are the only ones supported by AOL e-mail clients:
Big: Big
Body: Body
Bold: B
Break: BR
Center: Center
Font: Font
Header: H1, H2, H3
Hyperlink: A
Italics: I
Paragraph: P
Small: Small
Strong: Strong
Subscript: Sub
Underline: U


12. Include AOL Clickable Links
AOL users can't click standard hyperlinks or e-mail links. For links to work in AOL e-mail clients, you must format them using HTML. This is why you sometimes see both standard and HTML formatted links.

For example:
http://www.Mikes-Marketing-Tools.com
<a href="http://www.Mikes-Marketing-Tools.com">AOL Link</a>
<a href="http://www.Mikes-Marketing-Tools.com">AOL Users Click Here</a>

joe@anysite.com
<a href="mailto:joe@anysite.com">joe@anysite.com</a>

13. Spell Check Your Writing
Last but not least, always spell check your newsletter. Text editors, such as TextPad, include a spell check function.
If yours doesn't, then copy and paste the text into Microsoft Word (assuming you have it). Make sure you have the "Check spelling as you type" option switched on.
To set this, select "Options" under the "Tools" in the top menu bar. Then select the "Spelling & Grammar" tab. Under "Spelling" check the "Check spelling as you type" check box and click "OK." Word will underline all of the words that contain spelling errors.
Alternatively, check your spelling using SpellCheck.net, a free online spell checker.