Anatomy of a Good, Healthy HTML Email Newsletter

The following is an excerpt from MailChimp’s free 65-page email marketing guide, Designing, Coding & Delivering HTML Email: A Beginners Survival Guide from Mailchimp - definitely one of the best email marketing resources I’ve come across so far.

Anatomy of a Good, Healthy HTML Email Newsletter

Here’s what a well-built HTML Email Newsletter looks like: (Click the pic to see a larger version)

 1.  Your company name in the “From.”  Recipients should recognize who the email is from instantly. It can’t be deceptive in any way (duh). If a recipient has to strain his brain to remember who you are, he’ll click “this is spam” instead of opening.

2.  A relevant subject line (don’t be “spammy”), with your company or newsletter name in it. So they instantly know who the email is from, and what it’s about (hence, “subject” line).

3.  The “To:” field of your email should be personalized to the recipient’s name, not their email address. MailChimp lets you “merge” recipient names into this field, if you have it in your database. You would insert *|FNAME|* *|LNAME|*, for example. Search our help documents for “merge tags” if you want detailed instructions.

4.  A one-click opt-out link that removes people from your list immediately. Consider placing it at the top of your email (as well as in the footer), so that people who want off your list can find it really easy (instead of clicking their
“Junk” button). If you use MailChimp’s Managed List functionality, you would use our *|UNSUB|* tag to generate your unsubscribe link (it’s required in every email you send from our system). Any recipient who clicks it will be instantly removed from your list. If you use our built-in HTML email templates, we insert that link into the footer for you (no coding required).

5.  In addition to your opt-out link, you might also include a link in your header for recipients to “view this email in your browser.”  Point it to an archived version of your email on your server. This helps if the email got forwarded to friends, and then got mangled along the way. MailChimp automatically keeps an archived version of all your campaigns on our server. You can just use our *|ARCHIVE|* tag in your emails to link to yours. If you use our built-in HTML email templates, we automatically place this link at the top of all your emails.

6.  A link to your company’s privacy policy should be in your email. If you don’t have a privacy policy, you can use the DMA’s privacy policy generator. Google the phrase, “DMA privacy policy generator”

7.  Your valid, physical mailing address, and as much contact information as possible. The more contact information you provide, the more reputable your email will look.

8.  Bonus: It’s a really good idea to also include some kind of reminder text, like “You are receiving this email because you signed up at our website.”  People forget opting-in to lists, and they get a little trigger-happy with the “this is spam” button. That can get you reported to the major ISPs, so you want to prevent that as much as possible. Also, in the rare case that a recipient reports you to an antispam organization, having this reminder text can make the difference between a server admin blacklisting you forever, or contacting you for further explanation. If you use our built-in email templates, MailChimp inserts that reminder text into your email footer automatically.

TIP: If you’d like to sign up for a free trial Mailchimp account, click here.  This link makes you eligible for a $30 credit in the event you decide to upgrade to a paid account.