Sending Text AND HTML emails?

email newsletters

[bevan]

Anyone know of any "intelligent" email software that will send out Text and HTML email newsletters at the same time and be smart enought to deliver whatever the recipient supports.

We have a large mailing list and have always sent text based in the past. Have been hesitant to do HTML even though many of our subscribers have suggested we do (don't want to upset the text lovers).

Thanks in advance!

[hakre]

hi bevanwelcome to webmasterworld [webmasterworld.com].

the mime mail standard supports such a thing, but it ever depends on the mail client, too. you can create an email with a so called alternative body which is plain text only. please checkout your mail software for such a feature.

if you want to have 100% compability anyways, just use plaint text mails only.

-hakre

[mole]

Rather depends what server you're running on.
But, for example, a Windows2000 server running ASP code and CDONTS will do it for you automatically.

[gilmour]

hakre hit it on the head, a multipart mime message contains both versions and will display html or text depending on what the mail client supports.

The only caveat is that a MIME message makes no consideration of subscriber preference, simply technical capability. It would be wise to use separate lists for those specify a preference for text only when they opt-in (it will also save you bandwidth).

I have found that 85%-90% of our list are presented with the HTML version. HTML has many advantages for A/B testing,...there's data you just can't get from the text version, namely opens and unique opens.

[Mardi_Gras]

Anyone know of any "intelligent" email software that will send out Text and HTML

The term you're looking for is "multi-part."

Of the programs I've tried for desktop bulk mailing that support multi-part sending, Group Mail is probably the easiest to use. Mach 5 e-mailer has better database integration and far better support for conditional merging (which 99% of users will never attempt), but it lacks the simplicity of Group Mail.

Anconia RocketSales offers multi-part sending, will interface with your database, and will also track individual opens - unique for a desktop solution. But it lacks a lot in preview features.

GroupMail and Mach 5 have free versions to send up to 100 e-mails at a time. Anconia has only a trial version, limited to five e-mails at a time and (I believe) seven days total.

I would try them all and see what works best for you.

[Chuma]

One solution would be to send out a normal text message with the HTML newsletter attached so it can be viewed in a web browser.

This is the solution used by our company after testing several different methods of sending email newsletters.

Thanks.

[Mardi_Gras]

Chuma - I'm not certain why your company settled on that solution - what were considered to be the advantages over sending multi-part?

If you're not going to go multi-part, why not just put a link to the full newsletter in the body of the e-mail? People are much more likely to click on a link than to open an attachment, IMHO.