Your mind goes into overdrive….your boss is about to demand an update by 8:45 in the morning, and your ESP isn’t answering. You have no idea how you missed it when email testing, but it’s on you now. Punch today in the face.
It happens. Hopefully you didn’t damage the brand or get pricing wrong, hopefully you don’t work in financial services or for government, but there is hope!
Email is hard. Very hard. Few people recognise the pressures us folk have with deadlines and last minute changes. No other channel has that, at least not with the complexity of email. So what can we do?
Seems obvious but do proper email testing, then test again. If there’s an issue you need that audit trail. Trouble is, as you know too well, if you’re staring at the same email amend after amend then you miss stuff. Fact. Everyone does.
Testing emails online
It get’s worse [Ed:oh joy], your boss also wants interactivity in email and your agency recently did a session on how they do email test using one of the well known online tools we’ve all heard of but guess what? Although those tools are great (we actually like them and use them ourselves) on their own, that won’t work out. Not if you want to be a superbrand. Online email testing tools are a remote version of an interactive email at best, and a screenshot of an email at worst. How do you test your latest phone update using that? What about people who haven’t updated yet? How can you tell if the icon in your email is too small for the customers to press if your agency is only using a simulator. How do you even see moving things, well, move?
Online testing if used alone is a risk you may be willing to take, and that’s fine if your audience isn’t too bothered or you’re lucky enough to know what devices your target audience uses. But for the rest of us:
How do I know my email will show correctly after Microsoft updated outlook yesterday (also, I don’t want to worry about that!)
Testing emails online
Don’t accept software testing alone. The risks are too high.
At Altaire, every email is tested on a combination of multiple devices so you can be sure there are no surprises viewing emails on devices you don’t have on your desk, ready to sign off.
