Well talk about serendipity! Just hours after I posted about how to avoid strange text symbols in your HTML pages…an article in the latest Marketing Sherpa newsletter talks about a study that reveals that 53% of email subject lines are broken because of the funkedfied symbols you get when cutting and pasting text typed in Microsoft Word into email systems. So the same garble gremlins that can plague HTML pages can also mess up your email too.
The 17-page report (PDF) is freely available on the Marketing Sherpa web site until June 19th. It’s a fairly quick read and it outlines what causes the problem and how to fix it. The key takeaways are:
1. Do not copy email subject lines and messages from Microsoft Word into your email delivery system.
2. Write out your subject line in your email editor to ensure that there’s no hidden code in the subject line.
3. Test, test, and test your email mailings before you send out your newsletter or ezine. And be sure to test what it looks like on different types of email programs. Each program treats text a bit differently….because everything being the same is just too easy.
Check out the Marketing Sherpa article here:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/article.php?ident=30008+
Download the report (until June 19) here:
http://www.marketingsherpa.com/cs/pivotalveracity/study.html
Bottom line…don’t cut and paste directly from Microsoft Word…whether you’re writing copy for your web site or copy for your email newsletter. Remember…plain text editors are your friend!
