Your subscribers are the engine that keeps your business email database running – it’s its content and form and the reason your email marketing campaigns work. So it should come as no surprise that it’s generally considered a good idea to create email campaigns that primarily serve your subscribers in terms of usability and value. While this sounds like a simple concept on which to base your email marketing strategy, it’s often surprising how many brands don’t think from the perspective of a consumer and tech user. By creating campaigns that not only present your product or brand in a favorable light, but also make your subscribers’ lives richer and hassle-free, you can expect to receive great rewards from happy and appreciative subscribers who will remain loyal consumers.

simple web forms

One of the biggest benefits of email is that it acts as a direct line of communication with your consumers. This means your brand has access to valuable information that your consumer email database can provide through web forms and surveys. Sending consumers to a microsite where they can record their details, provide information, or further profile themselves is a great way to improve consumer experiences, but only if the actual process of providing that information to your brand works smoothly. All web forms, including your initial registration process, should be short, clear, and easy to complete. Simpler web forms save consumers time and effort and can increase the likelihood that they will share their experiences with their contacts and, as a result, support your brand.

Allow previews

Email clients like Gmail and Outlook: Include a short preview of an email’s content in the inbox after the subject line. This little preview or snippet can make your emails more valuable to subscribers before they even open them. Being able to discern what an email is about and what it contains saves time for the consumer who is probably already dealing with a fairly full inbox. Important to note: Many brands place their message asking users to view the email in a browser (“Not displaying correctly? Click to view in browser…”) at the top of their banner ads . The result is that these messages often end up being displayed in the fragment windows, which is not ideal. By modifying the code, you should be able to reflect a brief summary of your email content in the snippet.

Text and HTML

Email has become quite a complex medium with people seeing it in many different ways on different devices. While this has helped make email even more effective and ubiquitous, it has also caused some problems in terms of universal display. The solution at this point that your subscribers will be most grateful for? Including both a text and HTML version.

Sending a plain text version with your HTML emails is particularly imperative for smartphone users who will likely receive their messages through an email app on their phones. While most smartphones are catching up in terms of mobile email and in turn email is upping the ante by developing responsive banner ads, HTML emails can still cause problems when come on a small mobile screen. Including plain text messages makes your emails accessible to all of your subscribers, regardless of what device they’re using to read your email.