Can You Read This Email?

Here are 6 ways to make your email more accessible...

September 06, 2022

Hola amigos,

Accessibility is all the rage in digital marketing right now — rightfully so!

There are 1 billion people (15% of all people on Earth) living with a disability.

For marketers and business owners, you should be considering accessibility in your marketing for two main reasons:

It’s the right thing to do
You’re leaving LOTS of money on the table ignoring it

Money Talks 🤑

“If your site’s key objective is to allow shoppers to purchase products, everyone needs to be able to check out, regardless of their ability or tools they’re using to engage.” — Digital Marketing Institute

Let’s talk money for a second because that’s what motivates most people.

Those living with a disability have massive spending power.

Here are some stats to consider that’ll make your ears perk up:

Globally, this population has a spending power of more than $6 trillion
In the UK, businesses lose about £2 billion a month by ignoring the needs of disabled people
80% of people with a disability have taken their business elsewhere because of poor accessibility

Let’s say that your email list has 1,000 subscribers and that 12% of them have a disability.

Is your business so financially sound that you are OK with 120 subscribers going elsewhere because they can’t read, watch, or listen to the content in your emails?

If not, keep on reading.

6 ways to make your emails more accessible

The suggestions I am providing are easy to implement and the learning curve is shallow. In other words, it should be a breeze to make your emails more accessible to your audience.

1. Alt Text

Alt text is short for “alternative text”.

In Substack, as an example, every image you paste into your newsletter will have the option to add alt text to it when you click on the image. In fact, this is true for almost all email service providers.

If someone is using a screen reader OR if someone is viewing an email without images (not uncommon for work emails where servers block images from loading in emails), you need alt text to describe the image or there will be no context for the reader if they can’t see the image.

This is especially important if there is text in an image. Make sure your alt text includes the image text!

Here is a great blog about how to write effective alt text.

2. Fonts & Font Sizes

Your brand font will not appear in emails.

Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration.

About 99% of fonts won’t appear in an email unless they’re standard web fonts like Helvetica, Roboto, Times New Roman, or Arial.

The fact of the matter is that ESPs won’t render those fonts. Moreover, many are not accessible.

I wouldn’t worry too much about your email font not matching your brand/website dont. Find a web font that’s close to your brand’s font and be done with it.

Then, make sure that the fonts in your email are no smaller than 14pt — ideally, body paragraphs will be 16pt.

The sole exception to this rule is footer text and preheader text, such as “View this email in your browser”. I usually make those 10pt.

Check out this blog on web fonts.

3. Colour Contrast

Certain font colours are easier to read on certain backgrounds.

It’s obvious that black font on a white background is easy to read. However, it is less obvious that #ffffff font on a #00ff1d background is more difficult to read and wouldn’t pass basic colour contrast tests.

To find out if the colour scheme you are using passes accessibility guidelines, use the WebAIM contrast checker.

Side note: WebAIM is among the internet’s premier websites dedicated to internet accessibility. If you want to learn more about making accessible content, make sure to check out their site.

4. Grammar

When a subscriber uses a screen reader, the device will pause for commas and semicolons and come to hard stops at the end of sentences or between headings and subheadings.

If you ignore grammar and all rules of language, it will create a confusing experience for someone using an auditory device like a screen reader.

5. Image-Only Emails

I despise image-only emails.

Despite my constant clamoring about how annoying they are, some of the world’s biggest brands continue to send image-only emails to their subscribers.

Aside from the fact that they’re annoying (they often are designed as one giant button to drive up the click rate), they do not meet ANY of the accessibility best practices by their nature.

If you can’t design an email within the parameters of best practices, outsource it to someone who can.

6. URLs

This rule is simple.

Make sure to underline (or underline and bold) all text-based URLs in your email. This doesn’t need to be done with buttons for obvious reasons, but it should be done if any of the text in your email is hyperlinked.

A Little Bit Of Effort Goes A Long Way

My wife and I only go to restaurants that we know have adequate changing tables for our toddler. Even if the bathroom is a tight fit, if the owner took the time to think about the welfare of parents with small children, we’ll support them.

What does this have to do with accessibility?

It’s the closest we’ve come in our able bodied lives to feeling like our basic child-related accessibility needs haven’t been considered by the restaurant owner.

So when we experience this inconvenience, we don’t go back…all because someone wouldn’t spend a few hundred dollars on a change table.

All that is to say that making sure your emails are accessible isn’t a hard choice.

It’s the right thing to do, the learning curve isn’t that steep, and you’ll improve your bottom line.

What do you have to lose?

Adios,AndrewTwitter | LinkedIn