As we contemplate what’s new on the online marketing horizon, whether it be email, online or social media, we started thinking of all the components (and process) that go into creating a single email newsletter. Sure, the writing of the content takes time and ingenuity, but then there is the insertion of the final copy into the blog, creating and coding an email version of said blog, finding and formatting supporting images, testing the email in multiple readers and finally, the sending of the campaign. Whew!

And we’re not alone…Marketers everywhere must go through these same tasks to broadcast their news electronically over their digital channels. After 10 years of sending these monthly newsletters, most of the steps are second nature. While it takes no more than an hour to get an email sent out (once the story is written that is) it wasn’t always the case. When we reflected on earlier days, the tasks above seemed downright scary! So, this month we figured we’d take you on a journey to learn just how these Dog Paper newsletters get delivered to you each and every month and more importantly, share a few shortcuts along the way.

1. Writing the Content

   Figuring out what to write about each month takes the most amount of time and energy. But there are so many amazing writers and bloggers out there so don’t be afraid to use their concepts for inspiration. In fact, if others are writing about it, then it’s a good sign that folks want to hear about it too. Use these trends to your benefit. Chime in with your position. Here are some resources we tap into when formulating a topic.

   Shortcut of the day: Find blogs, websites and feeds posted in your industry or segment. Use these portals as a guide to take the pulse of your industry. Use them for inspiration (but don’t plagiarize of course and cite or credit accordingly)!

   Mail Dog Yard Resource Center – Compilation of talented marketing gurus and must follow RSS feeds.
   Email Marketing Reports – A collection of stats and information on the popularity of different webmail services and email in general.
   Marketing Sherpa – Resource that publishes useful news, case studies, and best practices data about internet and integrated marketing.
   MarketingProfs – One source for online marketing resources, marketing articles, online seminars, case studies, conferences and events for marketing professionals.

2. Populating the Blog

   Currently the Dogmata blog is powered by WordPress, which is fabulous and very easy to use (once installed). If you’re not blogging yet, maybe it’s something you should consider. In fact “77% of Internet users read blogs according to Universal McCann” And the best part is, you can integrate your blog into Facebook and Twitter to increase your readership.

   Shortcut of the day: Make your content work double-duty for you. Strategize how your content for your email newsletter can be integrated in to your other media channels. These alternate channels can help you with your SEO initiatives and building your online presence!

   Recommended DIY Blogs:
   WordPress – The No.1 best blog management tool
   Blogger – A free blogging tool for web designers
   Weebly – Free website and blog engine

3. Creating the Email

   Working for Mail Dog, we’ve got the easiest, most flexible email creation tool on the block (and over 250+ great looking customizable templates). This means, creating the HTML code for my email design is a breeze. That being said, there are some tips to make your life easier when creating HTML messages, regardless of who creates your code.

   Shortcut of the day: Take a look at the emails you like to get best. What do you like about them? What motivated you to take action or say, “hey, that’s a darn good-looking email!” We like to subscribe to lots of marketer’s lists so we can see what’s happening in design and functionality to keep us fresh.

   a) NEVER use text that had been copied directly from Microsoft Word, an email, a web site or anywhere other than Notepad. Doing so will inadvertently add messy, yucky, and unruly code to your email which can negatively affect the way your email looks in the inbox. The easy fix is to simply paste your text in Notepad (pc) or SimpleText (mac) prior to inserting into your HTML editing wizard OR if you are a Mail Dog client, use the “paste as plain text” icon installed inside your HTML editor tool. I promise, this little step will save you much heartache in the long run.

   b) DON’T go crazy with formatting fonts. Sure you need a bold or an italic here and there. But adding 6 different fonts with varying sizes and colors not only looks unprofessional, but also can get your email flagged as spam in the inbox (because it looks like spam).

   c) KEEP things short. No one reads long blocks of text in an email. Include 2-3 paragraphs of the most compelling content inside the email and include a “click here to read more” link. In the Dog Papers, we send people to our Dogmata blog to read more, but you can use your website, facebook, blog OR if you don’t have web hosting capabilities you can use Mail Dog’s Landing Page Publishing tools to host additional webpages inside your account.

   d) PLAIN text version is a must. There are still some users who can’t receive HTML coded messages, so always include a plain text version and send the email with MIME encoded. Mobile readers are also on the rise, who sometimes only get the text version. If you’re a Mail Dog client, we do this for you automatically; if you’re not a client then what are you waiting for?

4. Take a Coffee Break

   Yes, a breather is needed every now and again and what better than a nice, large cappuccino. Yumm! Use this break to research and poke around online at what other folks are doing – this way your break is completely legit! Ok, now back to it…

5. Format Images

   Finding the perfect image to support your text is a must. We like to use Google Image, Istockphoto.com, or Mail Dog’s Stock Gallery when searching for the perfect image. Always use ALT Tags when using images in an email. It allows for text to be read even if that image is disabled inside the users inbox. Now, having the luxury of Photoshop, we can easily resize images to the exact size we need. If you don’t have Photoshop, try using one of these FREE online image resizing websites:

   Pixlr – Free – quickest and easiest way to get the job done
   SplashUp - Free – offers a fun and casual image editing experience
   Picnik - Free, easy to use, fabulous, fun and powerful editing tool
   Adobe Photoshop Express - Free – offers some slick advanced tools

   Shortcut of the day: Ask your art director or graphics department to create low resolution, email-ready images when they are preparing promotional materials so you’ll have things handy when you need them. Create a folder on your computer of cool images that you ‘might’ use at some point so you can go there in a pinch as well. We find that even if we don’t have use for something immediately, inevitably it will be perfect!
   

6. Test, Test and Re-Test

   We cannot stress enough the need for everyone (yes, we mean you) to always send tests of your message before you hit send. And always send to someone who is better at grammar than you are. Proof read, spell check, click all the links and make sure the email is rendering properly in multiple readers. Don’t just rely on your inbox to do the testing. Test to free and corporate inboxes as each might render (or display) your email just a tad bit different. OR if you are a Mail Dog client use our Campaign Booster tool and we’ll send you a report of how your email looks in 33+ email readers.

   Shortcut of the day:  The great thing about the Mail Dog’s platform is we can schedule campaigns in advance. So thanks to a little pre-planning and Mail Dog’s future scheduling tool we could be in Tahiti while you are reading this. We’re not, but we could, so that’s kind of like being in Tahiti, right?

   We hope you learned a few shortcuts. Feel free to shout out if you need any other tips. We’re here to help you with your own email adventures!