Email . . . Lookin' Good!

By Todd N. Thompson
Posted Tuesday, November 23, 2004

An often overlooked aspect of online marketing is the importance of how your sales message is delivered. To say this in a more direct way would be to say, "does your email message arrive to the reader in a format that is easy to read, easy to understand, and does is let the reader know you are serious about your business?"

Formatting your email for success is critical. Here is the golden rule to follow. Never format your emails to be greater than 60 characters per line. If you go greater than 60 characters, some of your readers will have trouble reading your email due to how their email software renders the message.

Let me illustrate my point with two sample emails.

Email Message # 1 Hello Jim, Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah
blah blah, blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah
blah, blah blah blah blah .... Thanks, John Doe

(Line width in this example is greater than 60 characters)

Email Message # 2 Hello Jim,

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah blah blah. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah.

Thanks,

John Doe

(Line width in this example is set at 60 characters to guarantee a nice presentation in your customer's email programs.)

I know you will agree that example # 2 is a much better looking email message than message #1. In fact, I bet you have deleted email that looked like #1, because of the way it looked. Right?

Don't let your email messages suffer this tragic fate because you did not take the time to make them look Good.

Steps to Writing Good Looking Emails

Limit Character width to 60. Use a hard return (that means hit the 'enter' key when you get to 60 characters, or before 60 if the next word is long). I create my messages using Textpad. TextPad ® is a powerful, general purpose editor for plain text files. Easy to use, with all the features a power user requires. ( Go to: TextPad.Com and download the trial copy. )

Avoid using ALL CAPITAL letters. This is viewed as 'screaming' in the cyber world.

If writing your messages in HTML, use font color 'black' for the text of your messages and use color fonts to 'accent' specific words.

Always use blank lines between paragraphs and between your signature file and the cordial exit (Thanks, Sincerely.. etc).

A good looking email is a short message with impact . . . not a 'book'!

About the Author
Todd N. Thompson is an Internet marketing consultant, speaker and marketing expert. You can view his latest project, the "Royal Responder", the best follow-up autoresponse service available on the internet today, at (http://www.royal-responder.com/good)