People are flooded with email, far too much to really read it all. They have to quickly filter out spam, random bulk mail, email list posts... To get your information across to a large number of people in email, you must to respect the time and attention of your reader.
Do:
- If you can, make the subject line catchy, and get people excited to open the email. But don't try too hard -- the best default title to just state your information clearly.
- If your information has a date or deadline, put the date in the subject line and again in the first part of the body.
- Put the what, where, who in 'very short detail early on.
- If you have more than a few lines, break up body with headlines to help people skim.
- Put more extensive information on the web and supply a link.
Don't:
- Do Not use colors, custom fonts or clever design in an email. In general, you should avoid using HTML in email entirely. (If you want people to read a web page, put it on the web.)
- Do Not send unsolicited attachments of any kind. A lot of people don't like getting unsolicited email attachments. Sending attachments in a mass email also a good way to get blocked by spam filters, since this how most email viruses arrive. (If you want a lot of people to see your images, put them on the web.)
- If you must send an attached image:
- Do Not send large images. Compress images below 80k.
- Do Not send information only in an image. If the time or address of an event is only in an image, no one can search for it. And services like Gmail rely entirely on search.
- Do Not send an image that only repeats the information in the text. Why risk getting filtered as spam just to send the same information in a different font?