In this article, Darrah MacLean discusses 5 rules for using color in your emails:

Rule #1: Don't overdo it. If there are too many colors competing for attention (or too much of one color), the messaging impact can get lost.   

Rule #2: Stay within the palette. While you want each email to feel unique, you also want to be sure to keep the integrity of the brand and not stray from the overall feel. 

Rule #3: Use color to improve scannability. Use color to draw the eye across the page, separate sections and make certain areas POP!   

Rule #4: Be mindful of color implications. In a retail context, red often means "sale" -- but for other types of messaging, it can signify alarm.   

Rule #5: Make sure to keep it balanced. If the main color is green and the supporting colors are orange and blue, go heavier on the green and accent with the others. 

Read the full article here.

Denise Cox reports:

The Direct Martketing Association’s Email Marketing Council has released the Q2 2009 Email Benchmarking Report.

In this quarter’s report, email shows a consistent pattern of growth. Volumes have increased, and contacts per month rose for the first time in a year. Everything points to a growing confidence in this channel.

Interesting to note is that email used for acquisition has increased. Perhaps marketers are investing in more expensive acquisition campaigns to build in-house lists – which lets them continue the conversation one-to-one.

You can view the report (pdf) here.

Last week the folks over at Fingerprint recompiled their email client usage statistics. Here are some highlights: 

• Outlook continues to dominate the email client landscape, but Outlook 2007 is still only being used by around 1 in 10 recipients. 
• Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail are (slowly) losing ground, whilst Gmail gradually gains popularity. 
• iPhone ranks as the 6th most popular client. 

Read the full report here.