Email Best Practices: Tips and Tricks for Successful Email Campaigns

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Ever have a question about how to create an email?  Not so much product-oriented questions like "Where do I go in my product to design a template?" or "What is a seed list and why would I use it?", but more general, big-picture questions like:

  • "What can I include in my email to help spark a response and avoid looking like SPAM?" (An explicit call-to-action helps. As for SPAM, it's more a mix of what you should and, more importantly,  shouldn't include.)
  • "How can I keep a good reputation with my recipients and ISPs?" (A good reputation with the former definitely helps your rep with the latter. Clearly identify yourself, and be consistent with your brand identity.)
  • "Is designing an HTML email just like designing a web page?" (Short answer: No.)

If so, rest assured that you're not alone!  We often get asked these sort of general questions about email content and delivery, and over time we developed a hodge-podge of resources to help provide answers: a handful of Knowledgebase solutions and blog posts, a slideshow from a Blackbaud webinar, selected online tools and websites, etc. However, as the list of resources grew, it became a little unwieldy in terms of management and overall usefulness. Thus, we waded through all of these resources to compile our Best Practices for Email. This succinct document focuses on the needs of nonprofit organizations and online fundraisers, and provides a wide-ranging overview of email creation and delivery, including how to:

  • Set up strategic communication plans to best reach recipients, avoid over-communication, and build your sender reputation.
  • Create templates that clearly promote your brand and best take advantage of email clients' preview panes.
  • Compose content that captures recipients' attention, promotes a call-to-action, and encourages a click-through rather than a Junk folder.
  • Design HTML emails that best engage recipients and render properly across multiple email clients.
  • Build and maintain a positive sender reputation to ensure your email is successfully delivered and complies with CAN-SPAM and PIPEDA.

Please let us know your thoughts and any additional general questions about email best practices you may have! And, don't forget, for those product-oriented questions, you can always refer to your product's How-to Documentation.

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