I’ve got more notes to share from the Email Insider Summit. Here are some tips from Aaron Smith and Lisa Harmon from Smith & Harmon Associates. These folks are a talented duo from Seattle who know what they are talking about when it comes to email design. They also use Constant Contact to send out their email newsletter, which you can sign up for here.

Here are four design tips from Lisa and Aaron:

Images off solutions – Because many people have images turned off in their email accounts, use HTML instead of graphics and use alt tags with images so the recipient has a description of the image they are missing. Also, whether the images are enabled or disabled, your email should look almost the same.

Keep the preview pane in mind – For many, all they will see of your email is what’s in the preview pane. For a newsletter, keep the table of contents in the preview pane; for a promotional message, the call-to-action.

Using video – You don’t want to use video in email (read this post in the ConnectUp! forum to learn more about why), but referencing a video hosted on your website or elsewhere does help click-throughs. Use visual cues to indicate video, such as a still photo with a “play” arrow (see example).

For more tips from Smith & Harmon, visit their blog.