fonziguy

HTML emails are hard and cumbersome. With all the different email clients out there with different rendering engines and inconsistencies it’s not as easy as using modern HTML and CSS.

Postdrop helps by giving you a ready to go template and inlines your CSS so you can copy the output into your codebase or ESP. Send a test to yourself or colleagues to insure it works as expected in your email client or on your device.

This started as simple personal tool and now it has evolved to support user accounts so you can save and test all your templates in one place.

I share the sentiment and think there’s a balance.

The problem is a lot of marketers or designers go overboard with HTML emails and they’re overly designed with visuals and graphics in an attempt to look good or match their brand.

Using actual plain text is a bit of a pendulum swing in the other direction though and really restricts things, including the fact you can’t add tracking pixels to get the analytics you might need.

An HTML email that is “designed” to still look like plain text strikes a good balance I think. Allows for some visual type hierarchy improvements, allows for links with clear anchor text and utm tags and any tracking pixels you need. Easier for you the developer to maintain. While at the same time isn’t distracting to the user.

Check out this Grunt workflow https://github.com/leemunroe/grunt-email-workflow

Automates most of the painful tasks of putting an email together. You could also add a task that sends the templates to Mailchimp once built.

Even in 2017, and even with recent Gmail improvements, it is still a best practice to inline your CSS before sending email to ensure they don't fall apart in one of the many clients out there. This tool inlines your styles in real time and provides a handy preview so you can see what's happening.

Building HTML email is hard. Building responsive HTML email is even harder. But email opens on mobile are at 50% and rising. Hoping this article shares some useful advice and lessons learned.