C.R.A.P. (terrible name, infinitely useful) is an initialism which stands for contrast, repetition, alignment, and proximity. The term was coined by Robin Williams (author of The Non-Designer’s Design Book: Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice) and has become a basic principle of design. Utilizing the C.R.A.P. principles allows even the most inexperienced amateur designers to avoid the dreaded wall of text and instead create dynamic and attractive web content.

The basics of the C.R.A.P. principles are:

Contrast – Elements that aren’t supposed to be the same should be very different. Making the only slightly different confuses the eye and causes … Continue Reading

Monday morning I came into the office and started filtering through a weekends worth of emails. Typically I am a little rushed to get through the emails, so I can get onto other items. This Monday was no different, I was reading and responding to my emails just as I normally would. Then something changed when I came upon this email. It literally stopped me in my tracks, and I actually read it three times before I moved on.

Now I am not sure what … Continue Reading

Update: Here’s a link to a handy video Patrice made showing how to do this in Outlook: http://www.viddler.com/explore/ProFusionDemos/videos/16/

I frequently get asked how to put the little Twitter and Facebook icons into an email signature with links back to their respective accounts. If you are using Outlook 2007, here are some basic instructions for how you can add these icons to your signature.

1. Open Outlook
2. Click on Tools
3. Click on Options
4. From the tabs, click on “Mail Format”
5. Click on Signatures
6. Click on the New Button
7. Give your signature … Continue Reading
   

There is no doubt that email has greatly improved communication in almost all aspects of our lives. My husband and I keep track of our children and appointments with emails, my staff corresponds with clients and each other via email on a daily basis, and we know that many people are using email as a way to try and get their foot in the door. As important as an email can be, it still astonishes me at how lazy, unprofessional and completely unnecessary some emails can be. I sit on three different boards and numerous sub-committees and I … Continue Reading

When email marketing it would be nice to know what keywords should be avoided. Below is a list of 300 keywords and phrases that are often restricted by email spam filters. Avoiding these keywords will help your email marketing message to be delivered. We also suggest that you try to follow email marketing best practices.

The ProFusion Mailer has an excellent built in spam filtering tool that reviews your email blast for spam keywords prior to you sending. It also rates each keyword on a scale … Continue Reading

With the New Year comes new marketing strategies. If you are considering starting up an email marketing campaign, you’ll want to follow the 7 rules below to make sure that you are CAN-SPAM compliant.

1. Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.
2. Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.
3. Identify the message as an ad. The law … Continue Reading
   

If you’re new to email marketing, or not using it at all, you’re probably wondering, “Why use a professional email marketing tool such as ProFusion Mailer? I can just CC all of my customers or contacts using Outlook.” It’s easy to run into issues when you try and send out big blocks of emails like that.

Here is a list of 6 reasons why an email marketing program like ProFusion Mailer works better than Outlook every time.

1. Each email you send has the possibility of not reaching your intended recipient. Instead, it could get trapped in the … Continue Reading