One of the projects we're working on right now is to improve the readability and design of email notifications generated by Capsule. If you're the owner of a Capsule account you might have already spotted the new email designs in the signup, billing and user invite emails. One of the main changes is that these emails are no longer plain text but have a fresh HTML design. Next up is the daily task reminder email which is delivered to most of our users every morning. Here's a peek at what you'll see when the new email design is rolled out this week:
For those of our users familiar with creating email newsletters you may be aware of how HTML support differs greatly across email clients. If you're sending your own HTML emails or newsletter to your customers here's a few things to look out for when creating your emails:
- Unless you have HTML development skills and a lot of patience, you're best to use an email marketing service that includes templates or an email design tool that helps ensure your design works well across email clients. Take a look at Mailchimp or ActiveCampaign which are add-ons for Capsule, or CampaignMonitor which can be connected to Capsule via the integration platform Zapier.
- If you do want to create your own HTML template there are some good guides available such as Campaign Monitor's Email Design Guidelines.
- Your readers all have a preferred email client ranging from web based clients, desktop clients and mobile clients. Each client may render HTML differently or not support standard practise's combining HTML and CSS. Outlook 2013 specifically has many quirks.
- Testing across email clients is time consuming if you try to do it manually. The services suggested above typically include automated tools to easily view your design in the different email clients, or alternatively you can use a dedicated service such as Litmus.
- It is impossible for your design to look exactly the same on every client summarised nicely by the team at Campaign Monitor "Just remember that pixel perfection in all email clients is a pipe dream."
