Email newsletters have become one of the staples of online marketing. In a recent survey by the email distribution company, ConstantContact and cited by the Wall Street Journal, 36% of businesses say that email newsletters are the single most successful sales driver.

Email Newsletters allow frequent contact with your customers, a channel for providing useful information, and the means to track whether your email newsletter is actually being read. But they are a specialized means of communication, and few designers understand the intricacies of designing effective email newsletters. Don't believe me? Then take this test: ask any web designer if they can design an email newsletter for you. Their response will likely be something like "Sure! I've never done one before, but it can't be too hard."

Good newsletters, like any good publication, explain themselves clearly and are focused, well-written, well-designed information sources. Additionally, current research shows that the typical email newsletter is on screen for an average of 51 seconds. Also, email newsletters must be designed to display as they were intended on a variety of computer screens, on various platforms and within a variety of email applications each with their own protocols for filtering html. Below are some easy tips to keep in mind for writing, designing and distributing your next email newsletter.

1. Keep to the Point

Consider your audience and how many emails or various other marketing messages they receive every day. Just like you, your audience wants substance. And they want it now. Don't waste their time by forcing them to wade through filler.

2. Make Your Content Current, Timely, and Relevant

In a recent poll asking readers what made a newsletter valuable, the most common responses cited work-related news and/or activities in their own company or other companies (mentioned by 2/3 of users), prices and sales, personal interests and hobbies and events, deadlines, and important dates. The key here is, make your content valuable, and provide it when it can be used.

3. Avoid Bloat

Large, useless images slow down the recipients' email systems. Before including that 500 kilobyte photo of your corporate office, decide if it's really something your audience needs to see.

4. Use Links Extensively

Links are great: provide short summaries of articles, and link to longer and more complete versions. Newsletters with long, wordy articles that scroll on forever usually get deleted without being read because they seem like a waste of time. Provide the links in context so that they become part of the natural flow, and let your audience know what they are clicking on by using links like "Go to the full story >" or "Read More" instead of "Click here."

5. Make it Scannable

Users spend on average, less than a minute reading the typical newsletter. Make that time well spent by providing clear, useful headlines and sub sections that can be scanned easily.

6. Use a Clear, Simple, Predictable Layout

Arrange your information within a layout that is easy to navigate through. Use predictable devices such as a table of contents, clearly defined subsections, and a footer with unsubscribe information. Use commmon conventions for your design - remember, your newsletter will be on the screen for less than a minute, so this is no time to experiment with that wacky new navigation system you just cooked up.

7. Know the Limitations of the Current Technology

Over the last few years, html and CSS (cascading style sheets) have come a long way. But guess what? Tables are back. As elegant as CSS is on the Web, we are designing for email applications - not web browsers. Tables, for the moment, are the only way of coding the layout within an html email newsletter with any reliability. CSS is used for styling of text only. Be sure to use an inline style sheet (no linking to external css files) as all email applications will block external content such as style sheets and images unless the user has specifically disabled this function in their email application or they click on "load images." Which brings us to our next point - use absolute links for your images, not relative links (i.e. that will be http://www.mydomain.com/images/myphoto.jpg rather than images/myphoto.jpg).

8. Don't Get Fancy

Save the Flash for when you know it will work. Today's email applications are savvy enough to know that Flash in emails is a potential carrier for viruses, and they block it by default. Just focus on your message and communicate in as clear, strong and compelling of a manner as you can.

9. Use a Professional Email Subscription Service

It's just not ok to use BCC anymore. And why would you? Professional subscription services such as iContact.com allow users to subscribe/unsubscribe using opt-in and double opt-in (you've seen this if you've ever received a confirmation email after subscribing for a newsletter) and they also provide tracking information such as number of opens, bounces, links and forwards. All useful stuff and all for under 10 dollars a month.

10. Test Test Test

Before sending your email newsletter to your distribution list, send it to your coworkers, your friends, your mother-in-law, your pen-pal in Sweden - everyone you can think of so that you can know if it's displaying correctly on a variety of configurations. There are also online services that provide screen shots of your email in all the major email applications, but this won't allow for weird custom settings.

11. Call in an Expert

Email newsletters are the ideal project for sending to an outside agency. Companies who specialize in this type of communication medium can quickly organize your content into an attractive layout that effectively communicates and strengthens your brand. Once the layout has been established, your only responsibility is to focus on the content, which deserves your full attention. Many design firms who create email newsletters for their clients also have the capacity to copy edit your content for you making sure it is as clear, concise and polished as it needs to be before your audience sees it.