Email is simple, right? We write our email and off it goes. But for something so ubiquitous, it's something that is very hard to get right in applications and websites. All the effort goes into the look and features but email is just an after though. This is strange when we consider that its a key tool, used to:

• Communicate goods in delivery
• Staying in touch with visitors
• Announcements and marketing
• Dealing with enquiries

All very important, but how sure are you that the emails are being sent out?

Don't do it yourself

It's far easier now just to outsource email to specialist software and these often come with a suite of tools to help you manage your emails. These will often conform with best practice and include a host of analytics tools as well.

Look and feel

Your mail may look pretty ugly but would it boost the organisation's profile if it was branded?

Authentication

To avoid emails being delivered to a recipients spam folder, an email provider will probably have good standards in place to ensure that phishing attempts and other ruses are detected. Phishing by the way is when an attacker, masquerades as a trusted entity, tricking a victim into opening an email or other type of message.

So, if the email that your application or website sends is not composed correctly it might be viewed as spam and not delivered to your intended recipients inbox.

This is another reason not to do it yourself.

Make it easy to unsubscribe

Okay, lets say that your email has been delivered but the recipient doesn't want any more emails. What the user should be able to do is the find and an easy locate unsubscribe link. If the user cannot find a way to do this, and to avoid future contact, all emails will be put into the spam folder, thus making it more likely that in future your mails will automatically head for the spam folder.