A friend recently asked me if there was a way to target an email for the iPhone, but still display normally for other clients.  My response was initially “no”, but after further thought I realized that there is a way to display a sort of customized email specifically for iPhone/Ipod touch users.

To do so requires a little ingenuity, in the form of a php app (downloadable below) and the following steps:

1. Add an image to your html, preferable the one your going to use as your targeted iPhone message.
2. Remove any width, height, and alt tags from the above tag. You want this image to be as non-descript as possible when it displays to non-iPhone users.
3. Next, apply an image map to your image.
4. When your done with step 3, replace the src of the image with “iphone.php?file=yourfilename.gif”. ‘file’ is the only variable that iphone.php accepts. If you don’t specify it, it will return a blank gif. “yourfilename.gif” refers, of course, to the image you want iPhone users to see.
   Your image tag should look something like this now:
   <img src=”http://www.YourDomain.com/iphone.php?file=yourfilename.gif” border=”0″ usemap=”#iphonemap”>
5. Now just make sure that the image you are referencing is in the same folder as the ‘iphone.php’ file (or that you’ve put the right path to it).
6. and your done!

Now when you send your campaigns, iPhone users can receive a custom email/message with multiple clickthrus!

Note: I haven’t done a thorough test of this among multiple email clients. I can only confirm that it works well with Thunderbird and the iPod Touch.

If you have any issues or suggestions with these files, please leave a comment below.

Download ZBIT
(Zach Biles iPhone Targeting…..sounds better than ZIT =) ).

I haven’t posted much in the past month, but rest-assured I have indeed been working on new items for this website.

• New Design - The new design is still being fleshed out. I’d like to add some Calvin & Hobbes-esque art to it, but we’ll have to see how that looks.
• Flickr-style Image Annotations - I’ll be releasing a really nice looking image annotation plugin I wrote. It’s based on the Flickr image annotation system, except I’ve thrown in some nice jQuery fade effects and the comments look a little better (IMHO anyways).
• Yahoo-style Slideshow Gallery - If you’ve ever viewed photos on Yahoo Autos, you’re familiar with this type of photo gallery. I’ve created my own version of their gallery and I think it came out very nice.
• Viget-style Lightbox - For some reason, I always thought that creating a lightbox wouldn’t be very easy to do….but, after attempting to recreate Viget’s lightbox I found it was super simple! So, I’ll make that available too. (For those that don’t know, a lightbox is when the screen fades to black and something else appears over the site…..e.g. my current recent work to the right does this)

The next version of this website is under way. I had come up with a new re-design earlier and although it looked professional, it felt very generic. So, what I’m working on now looks a bit more unique and is more inline with current design trends (that being the textured/hand-drawn/sketchbook look).

Here’s a small preview of how it currently looks, it will definitely be changing as I add in more elements:

Version 4.0 Preview

I’ve created hundred of emails and I’ve reviewed/analyzed probably ten times as many. In that process, I’ve come up with a few Do’s and Don’ts…or really just basic tips to improve your emails. Some of this stuff I wish I had known when getting into email development.

Can’t See The Images In This Email? Neither Can I!

Always, always put a link in your emails to view them within a browser. There are quite a few people out there that check their email from work that can’t view your images within their email clients. Unless it’s a really basic transactional email (e.g. mostly text), don’t leave this link out. Often times, the entire message of an email is stored within the images. If users can’t view them, then what’s the point?

Web2.0 is No Go

HTML email is invariably far behind the curve of the latest web technology. In creating your emails, leave out Javascript and Flash. Although there are some email clients with limited support for these technologies, it is more likely to cause your campaigns to be flagged as spam.

Place Primary Call to Action in Prime Location

The portion of your email that is immediately visible to a user varies from email client to email client. However, you’re almost guaranteed that the top left corner will be visible. So, take that into consideration when developing the creative for your emails. Place the main item that you believe will generate the highest CTR(clickthrough rate) in this position and save the rest for other offers.

Embedded Images vs. Linked Images

Never ever embed images within your email. Doing so sends up all kinds of red flags, impairing the deliverability of your email. Plus, it raises the filesize of your emails substantially. Nothing angers a consumer more than having all their other emails held up while they download yours.

Focus on the Subject…line

The subject line is one of the most important factors in getting your message across in email. It determines whether or not your email will even get the opportunity of a passing glance. So, spend some time testing different approaches and measuring results. The difference between a good subject line and a bad subject line are huge.

Attaching Files is Bad, Very Bad

Nobody likes to open up attached files unless they are from a friend or co-worker or if they are expecting to receive them. For good reason too, a lot of sensitive information goes through email and nobody wants to risk that by opening up some unknown file. Plus, nobody wants to download them.

Forms Don’t Work

There are very few email clients that support forms within email. So, just leave them out. If you have to have your recipients fill out a form, place a link in the email to a webpage with the form on it. Then they can decide whether or not they want to participate.

 Got some tips of your own that you’d like to share? Please add them to the comments.

I got a question recently of what to do after you create the HTML portion of an email.  If you aren’t going to be sending a text version, then the next step is to send it (otherwise, create the text version…and then send it ).  Which is probably where many people get lost. However, all you need is the right software to format it correctly and send it out. Here are four different approaches to sending HTML email.

1. Open-Source Email Library - This is the option that I took. I downloaded a copy of PHPmailer and wrote my own small PHP application for sending test emails. The PHPmailer library has built in functions for sending email. So, all I had to do was provide it the necessary information(html file, addresses, etc.). Since then, a nice alternative to PHPmailer has come out, Swift Mailer. Those who want to go this route would be better served to use Swift Mailer instead (as it has a large and growing userbase and still has an active developer community working to improve it). However unless you’re only going to use it for testing purposes, many features that you would want with a Mass-mailing app will *have* to be built in (e.g. unsubscribe, trimming of bounced emails, blacklist monitoring etc.).
2. Open-Source Mass Mailing Software -The only decent open-source software that I’ve been able to find with an active development community is Pommo.  I’ve tested it out and it’s fairly user-friendly. Although it still needs to be refined a bit more, it has a lot of the features that users are looking for and a growing community that you can ask questions of.
3. Email Service Providers - With this option, you’ll get pretty much every feature you’d like. However, you’ll also be paying a set amount per email. Usually, this ranges from $0.01-$0.05 per email. Some also have a set fee that is also included with each campaign you send out. Of all the providers out there, the one that is probably the most user-friendly for designers is Campaign Monitor. With them, you can setup email campaigns for clients, charge your own rate (above what CM sets), and more.
4. Email Server Appliances - In addition to the above options, some companys also offer email appliances that can be added to your server racks. You can expect this option to be significantly more expensive (probably prohibitively so for freelance designers), but it does have a vast array of features and support. One company known for this is Strongmail.

As with any of these solutions, it’s ultimately up to you to make sure you don’t violate the law (read the CAN-SPAM Act).