Email Accessibility Standards Every Marketer Should Know in Agriculture

Text and Font Standards That Make Agricultural Emails Readable

Don’t use font as a decorative element, use it for a purpose. Headlines should be wide enough for a person to read quickly as they walk between tasks (22-28 pxes).

A few standards worth following every time:

• Keep line length under 75 characters – shorter lines reduce eye strain
• Use a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 between text and background, per WCAG guidelines
• Avoid italics for long passages – they slow reading speed noticeably
• Left-align text instead of centering paragraphs, which disrupts reading flow

Make key words such as plantings dates or discount codes stand out, but not too much. The more bold the text the quicker it loses its impact, and readers begin to skim over it all.

Image and Visual Content Rules for Agriculture Email Campaigns

Without ALT text, images will appear blank to users, as they won’t be able to click on them to navigate to the relevant product or service page. Many teams in the agricultural sector struggle to create emails with engaging visual elements and user-friendly designs without having to code each email from scratch every time. An html email builder can solve exactly this problem, since most modern email platforms offer alternatives to “raw” HTML for structuring email content with screen readers in mind, adjusting contrast, and adding alternative text. This will save time and help reduce marketing and development costs. Whenever possible, reduce the size of image files to less than 200 KB, as this will allow elements to load faster even if the user has a slow internet connection.

Structure and Layout Standards That Help All Readers

In three seconds, an email is either read or deleted, and that’s determined by your layout. Avoid long paragraphs; break content into short paragraphs.

A few layout rules that hold up across most email clients:

• Use a single-column layout for mobile readers – over 60% of emails get opened on phones first
• Add clear headers before each new topic, so readers can jump straight to what matters
• Keep buttons at least 44×44 pixels, large enough to tap accurately with gloves or thick fingers
• Leave white space between sections; cramped layouts strain the eyes fast

Place the most important information at the top of an article there is no need to wait for people to scroll down to the bottom.

Subject Line and Preview Text Standards for Farm Audiences

Accessibility is not just when the email opens, it’s when a subject line appears on a lock screen in a tractor cab or in a barn office. Subject line length should not exceed 50 characters, the first sentence should start with the concrete benefit or with the name of the product itself and punctuation should be kept to a minimum: only one ‘!’ at the top.

Text preview is no exception. Pre-type the preview text, which should be a summary of the subject line to reinforce rather than repeat boilerplate.

Some rules to follow when it comes to subject lines and preview text:

• Be careful not to put any emoji as the first character as some screen readers will say the name of the emoji before the text.
• The most useful word should be the first word in the first 30 characters (the crop, the discount, the deadline), as many phones will show a truncated view of the rest of the words.
• Avoid using other symbols such as arrows, stars or brackets, which provide no information
• The preview text must be a real continuation of the subject (not a copy of it).

One of the most impactful email accessibility choices a marketer makes is the subject line, since for many farmers who are just looking at an email between rounds of work on a piece of equipment, it’s the only part they read.

Testing and Quality Assurance Standards Before You Hit Send

Accessibility standards are only important if they are checked prior to an email hitting the subscriber’s inbox, and agriculture marketing teams would be better served with a quick, repeatable checklist, rather than a single audit. Tests discover the disparity between what your email looks like in the design tool and what it performs like on a broken display phone in bright sunlight or a screen reader in a farm office.

The steps that are usually taken in a pre-send routine should include:

• Use an automatic accessibility checker for each campaign to identify missing alt text, poor color contrast and font below 14px.
• Read the email on a small screen (mobile device) with the brightness set up to match that of a field reader, which is likely to be set higher than on a desktop monitor, so as to be as close to field conditions as possible.
• Use a screen reader, and hear the e-mail read aloud, making sure that the order of reading matches the order on screen and that any links read aloud say what they are connecting to.

But when accessibility is built into the send, rather than being a redo or a one-time fix, standards don’t simply fall into disrepair as more templates and promotions are added over time. It also provides a paper trail if there should ever be a compliance question.

Legal Requirements and Compliance Standards Marketers Must Follow

Having a website that is accessible is not only a best practice, it is sometimes a legal requirement. Since 2017, digital communication (such as email) has been subject to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in a few cases. The W3C maintains Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, which provides guidelines on contrast, text size and navigation structure that most businesses adhere to.

Key compliance points agriculture marketers should track:

Failure to comply with these requirements has real consequences. The unavailability of digital content has already led to lawsuits and companies having to pay compensation. Complying with the requirements from the outset is much less expensive than resolving issues after a complaint has been filed.