A coupla weeks ago, I blogged about Jakob Nielsen’s list of top priorities for Web site redesign. Priority number one was create an email newsletter.

But if you’re going to address priority number one, do not do it like Sara Ramirez.

I joined her mailing list after seeing her as the Lady of the Lake in Spamalot. She was brilliant, and the Tony Award voters agreed. Now she’s on Grey’s Anatomy, one of the hottest shows on television.

What the heck is she thinking? Or, rather, not her but the person who is supposed to be looking after her reputation online.

See that graphic up there? That’s a screen shot of Sara’s email newsletter. Bad header image. Utterly horrible background (is that Hal from 2001?). Black type against a horrible background that renders the text unreadable. The worst MySpace pages are better than this.

Did anyone look at this mess before clicking the “send” button?

Well, at least this much can be said: The newsletter echoes the design of her Web site. But that’s another kettle of albatross.

Takeaway for marketers: If you’re sending someone an email, at least make sure that it can be read. And if this comes as a revelation to you, then what the heck are you doing in the online marketing world in the first place? Egads.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 27th, 2007 at 6:00 am and is filed under Internet Stuff, Marketing Stuff, Marketing Takeaways.