BrightWave's founder and principal outlines the crucial elements for strong -- and compliant -- email headers and footers.
The devil is in the details and that applies for email marketing as well. While industry topics like testing, deliverability and design often command more mindshare among marketers, the little noticed usage of headers and footers in each and every email is a crucial component of your campaigns. Therefore, a correlating evaluation of how you utilize these sections is worth your time on an ongoing basis.
Let's take a look at elements of a strong email header and footer and how you should evaluate and optimize these key pieces of email real estate:
Unsubscribe/Subscription Change/Preference Center
Let's start with the big one. CAN-SPAM dictates a clear and working unsubscribe link. In addition or combined with this requirement, marketers should offer a chance for the user to change the format of their email subscription to text from HTML (or vice versa) or opt-in to other email newsletters or change the frequency of their deployments. Also, remember some people may have been forwarded your email so give them an easy way to subscribe as well.
Viral/Forward
Not that your "Forward to a Friend" button should live exclusively in the header/footer but this is an easy and consistent place to receive word-of-mouth marketing from your subscribers. Remember to also integrate it in the body of the message and think outside of the box when it comes to the copy-- "Forward to a Friend" may not be appropriate in a B2B email, for example.
White List
What good is a great email campaign if no one gets it? One way to ensure your users will continue to receive your emails, is asking them to add you to their address book or personal white list. A sample of the right kind of copy is:
To be sure that you always receive My Company's Newsletter, add the email address newsletter@company.com to your address book or personal white list.
View as Web Page/Printer Friendly
With the possibility of image blocking, broken links and other email mangling issues, the header and footer are other spots to let users view your email as a webpage. Sample copy can be:
If you have trouble viewing this email, please click here to view it as a web page or type this URL in your browser.
The printer-friendly version may sound old fashioned but many executives like to hold a copy of a newsletter or special offer and read it later. Why not go the extra step?
Cross Promotion
Cross promoting other newsletters, products or services is a must do for almost every email campaign, but a subtle and effective way is to do so in the header or footer.
Customer Service/Contact Info
Allow your email campaigns to be even more cost effective by letting your users find how to contact you via email (instead of a costly toll-free number) or even better provide an FAQ section that links from your Customer Service Footer. As part of CAN-SPAM you must also provide a physical address.
Archives
Some users may be craving more information from you and your emails, so provide an easy to find link to your archived collection of past emails and newsletters. This also drives additional web traffic and should collect more leads in a B2B environment.
Search
Speaking of users digging for more information or products from your company, let them search for exactly what they are seeking. You can provide a search box or button in the footer and keep the one-to-one interaction with your subscriber intact without losing them to Google.
Web Navigation
The sole purpose of many email campaigns is to drive traffic to your website. So it goes without saying (even if that is not your purpose) that part (or all) of your email header or footer should mirror your website navigation.
Advertise in this newsletter
Some newsletters are cash cows (DailyCandy for example). Even if you are not generating revenue but would like to, why not include an easy way for someone to find out how to sponsor your newsletter?
Privacy Policy/Legalese
This is not a fun one but an essential one. A privacy policy (don't forget to include email-related policies) often reassures users that their data is in good hands. They may not even read it but linking from your email builds trust and is the responsible thing to do.
Copyright Information
While this is not practiced often, your resource-intensive and praise-worthy designs and copy deserve the same treatment as your website. Don't even give a shady blogger the opportunity to steal your content or design and repost as their own.
Partner Recognition
Some design or email firms offer (don't let them dictate!) a discount if their email-related services are promoted in your email campaigns. The ubiquitous "Powered By" feature near the footer is often a way for the marketer to shave some costs while letting an email design or deployment firm get added exposure.
In summary, tweaking your headers and footers won't dramatically alter your email campaigns right away but they will provide handy information for the recipient as well as cover your bases on many fronts. Don't overlook these foundation pieces to a key email marketing program.
G. Simms Jenkins is founder and principal of BrightWave Marketing, an Atlanta-based email marketing and customer relationship services firm. Read full bio.