Email Basics, Suggestions, Requests

Last Updated: June 13, 2022

Table of Contents

Introduction

Creation

Testing

Submission

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Introduction

Here are some basic principles and a few specific tips that will make email creation and approval smoother for you, the email creators and us, the marketing team whose job it is to review, edit, approve and schedule your emails.

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Creation

• Clone a recent email whose formatting is similar to the email you’re creating.
• If you’re creating multiple similar emails, create and submit one, get that approved, then clone that one to create others.
• Subject line:
  • no exclamation points
  • no hashtags
  • ideally under 45 characters (including spaces)
  • title case (https://capitalizemytitle.com/)
• Preheader: keep under 100 characters (including spaces).
• Standard styles:
  • font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
  • font-size: 16px;
  • line-height:24px;
  • link color: #2774AE; (unless on dark background)
• On an image, when “scale to fit” is checked, the width for the image still needs to be specified, because it’s needed by Outlook.  If the image spans the entire email, the width of the image specification should be set to 600.  In other cases, you can use View in Browser and then inspect an image to determine what size it should be for Outlook.
• The intrinsic size of your images should be at most 1200px (any larger is not necessary and can slow email loading for recipient). Note: this is the actual size of an image, not the size it takes on in the email – the dimensions can be seen by examining the properties of a file (in Windows Explorer, Properties -> Details).
• Make sure inherent width of image is at least the width it may appear in the email; e.g., for “thumbnail” images that stack (and scale up) on mobile, 200px wide is too low-res (480px is usually minimum).
• Always enter alt-text; remember to change it if you’re swapping out an image. This is important for ADA compliance.
• Make sure link titles identify exactly what the link does (e.g., title can’t be “RSVP” if there are five RSVP buttons on a page).
• When linking to OLG site, always include personalization in link: &MG=%%PublicID%%. If a donation is possible, include &Finder=%%FinderNumber%%.

Note: Do not click on the personalized link sent to you by AppDev and then copy from browser’s address window – link will be incorrect.  (Instead of %%, it will have %25%25). Instead of clicking, copy the link from the email you get. (Right-click -> Copy Hyperlink)

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Testing

• Preview in Desktop, Mobile views
• Check every link - make sure that RSVP/signup pages (e.g., Google forms) do not require login unless absolutely necessary.
• Check plain text – at very least, make sure it’s from the correct event; if not Restore From HTML.
• At a minimum, send yourself tests that you can view in Outlook on desktop and on your phone.
• If lines containing links are too close together on mobile, make sure the style tag of the anchor link contains “line-height:24px !important;” Note: gmail doesn’t like !Important with a capital “I” – so has to be “!important”
• If there are unexplainable gaps between links and following character, wrap that character in <span></span> tags.
• If the text in your email seems to be wrapping in awkward places, use HTML Editor tab to look for things like this:

            Join&nbsp;us for a game watch party – replace &nbsp; with a space.

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Submission

• Official deadline is 3:45 p.m. the day before, but submit as early as possible
  • We often require input from you before giving final approval.
• Use “Copy Location” to indicate where the location of the email in Salesforce.
• Make sure your Marketing Effort has been activated and exported.
• Include the correct seed lists – they expire from time to time, so please keep your specification up to date.