Switching from text-only to HTML: Ouch
Having published hundreds of articles about HTML email, I have to admit that I had *no idea* how hard doing it ourselves would be.
The design was the fun part.
First I picked a simple color palatte because it would help our brand stand out in a colorful marketplace.
Plus, fewer colors means “high value” at a gut level to many businesspeople. (Think about it, no-cost or low-cost trade magazines are colorful while valuable research reports are often black and white.)
Next I trolled the Web looking for design ideas to steal. My faves: DWR.com’s newsletter, Barry Parr’s MediaSavvy.com blog, and the interior pages of UnitedWayToronto.com. You guys rock.
After hours of tweaking with our Web designer Ryan Manville, I handed the HTML layout over to our email broadcast vendor.
Then the hard part began. Turns out great Web page design from style-sheet perspective is often too heavy for great email design. Oops. Also turns out folks using Compuserve or Netscape got a horrible-looking version of our HTML. Oops.
The good news is, SherpaStore sales are up roughly 70% since we made the switch last Friday. That will probably stabilize to a lot lower once people get over the novelty factor, but it’s still a happy thing.
Next time I have to pound it into my head! Test much more prior to launch!
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