Q2. How do I design an email knowing there are so many email software platforms out there?

Design your email using well-formed HTML - no broken or unmatched tags. Identify the main web-based email clients to be tested by analysing your list's domain names, e.g. gmail.com & googlemail.com, yahoo.com/co.uk/etc., hotmail.com/co.uk/etc. & live.com/co.uk/etc., aol.com/co.uk/etc. If you have a B2B list, also include Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007 and Lotus Notes in your list of clients to be tested. If your ESP provides templates pre-tested across a range of email clients, use one, or base your design on one. Finally, test your design in all relevant clients - use a preview service such as Litmus if you don't want to run the tests yourself.

Read more about this topic: "Outlook 2007 and HTML email design: a summary" and "Email rendering - a hot topic for 2007"

Q1. Is the preview pane used by a lot of people? How should I design my emails to take this method of viewing emails into consideration?  

In MarketingSherpa's recent Benchmark report they found that in B2C almost 27% and in B2B 69% usually view emails in the preview pane. So, particularly in B2B, you should design to maximise what appears in the preview pane, as it is how people decide whether to open and read your email. Your template should be designed to optimise that 2"-3" space at the top of the email seen in the preview pane. The 'above the fold' should give the reader the quick insight into what follows, and entices them to open up.

Old "business of email" design: Not too long ago I had this newsletter re-designed to look better in the preview pane and with images off. The original design used graphics for the topic headers, my photo and signature, and also featured an animated .gif and a larger banner at the top. Here's what it looked like with the images on - and below is what it looked like with the images off in Outlook 2007.




New "business of email" design: As I say, the new design factored in the preview pane - with images off. The letter from the editor was moved to the left column and now serves as the table of contents. Most of the images used in the old version were removed, leaving only my photo and a much smaller banner. The new design uses HTML colour coding rather then graphics. Also, more of the newsletter can now be seen in the preview pane. Here's how it looks in Outlook 2007 with images off.