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Can you offer me some advice on creating an HTML newsletter which can be emailed. Basically, I am recieving these quite a lot myself, resembling a web page with hyperlinks to a larger host site, which opens up in the message window of an email.
I am using Dreamweaver as my preferred editor.
Sorry in advance for such a basic question :(, I'm sure the answer is obvious !
Thanks
Mark
What you need is a tool that can send HTML e-mail en-masse.
We use Gammadyne Mailer- it's cheap ($99) and quite impressive (if you can get over the really ugly UI :(). Their support people (I think it's just the one guy who made it) always answer e-mails really quickly. We've been wholesomely impressed.
It will also take care of the embedding of images etc.
[gammadyne.com...]
send a plain text short newsletter that links to nicely laid out web pages...make the decision to download it the users
I unsubscribe from ALL newsletters that change over to html, as a matter of course...anyone sends me one I can't remember subscribing to then I block all mail from that address
I send an occasional newsletter to the users of my library. I have a very simple method for doing so... but its fine for my purposes. I use Outlook Express, but you can do this with just about any email application.
Create a "group", for example "Newsletter Group", and add all your subscribers to it. Then create a contact, for example "Newsletter Subscribers" and set the email adress to yourself. When its time to send the nesletter, create it (all text) as the body of an email message, then send it TO "Newsletter Subscribers" (yourself), and BCC the group "Newsletter Group", and add an appropriate subject.
When a subscriber gets his newsletter, he will see it sent TO "Newsletter Subscribers" and he will see the subject, but he will not see the address of all the other subscribers.
This is very simple but it works for me.
cya!
I was really interested in the method used to take an HTML page/layout and process this for use in the email, rather than actually mailing the message.
Joshie, do you find the program you mentioned handles this also?
I administer one newsletter, and there was a lot of pressure from the graphics and marketing types to move it to HTML. I resisted the move, because I, for one, can't stand it when some overzealous designer forgets that I have to download all that stuff -- I'm only on a 56k connection most of the time, after all, and I need to filter through a LOT of email every day. It's not the right time to hit me with a dealy.
Then there's all the security issues around HTML e-mail. I've disabled javascript in my e-mail client, and that helps the security a bit, but there's still a host of other issues.
So, we found a happy compromise: we send ASCII e-mail, with short teaser paragraphs that link to a full web page. There the marketing and design folks can have a freer hand. The archived newsletters left on the website also make great search engine food.
It's also true that you CAN start sending just HTML email and only lose a small percent of names from your client database. Inertia is working for you here, but that doesn't mean you haven't lost some goodwill. What you want is for the newsletter to be read and appreciated, not just downloaded. For instance, I ususally hit delete the minute the graphics start to show up in an e-mail. The only reason I don't premanently disable HTML from my inbox, is that I have a few clients and correspondants who persist in using it.
One by one, when I have the time, I take myself off the mailing lists of those who send me HTML e-mail. I'm not alone in this.
Interesting related article: Friends Don't E-Mail Friends HTML [wired.com].
Remember - everyone on WMW is a web savvy intuitive and we aren't a reflective cross-section of the web's audience. Let people choose how they want their newsletters served up. Personally I'd always go for HTML - I like things to look nice; I like my office, home, magazines, newspapers, tv shows and car to look nice.
Obviously, as with anything, it should be well designed and improve the experience (and not take an age to download) - but once again we seem to be incorrectly laying the blame on a tool as opposed to those who misuse it.
I design my pages in DW/homesite then cut and paste the HTML into gammadyne. This takes care of everything else (including images) and it can even handle conditional formatting (i.e. using values in a database to change the newsletter: Dear Mark etc..)
You can download a free trial at their website.
I agree — that's a good idea. I've read two different newsletters recently (and that's where these stats come from - a small sampling, to be sure) about the differences they've found between:
1. Default is HTML with an opt-in to ASCII (over 80% HTML - combined average)
2. Default is ASCII with an opt-in to HTML (over 80% ASCII - combined average)
3. No default, force the choice (about 40% HTML - combined average)
The fact is that the great majority of people don't change anything, they just take the default.
Drawback: people who are receiving your HTML newsletter are not likely to let you know about any formatting problems - they just don't read it! And after all, reading IS the main point of the newsletter. So, with all the possible variations in email clients, I'm very hesitant about sending HTML, even when it's minimally formatted.
For example: I get Chris Sherman's "Searchlight" newsletter from About.com in HTML. Now that's a big site, and I'm sure they work hard to get the formatting right for their newsletter. And yet, with Netscape Messenger, I need to side-scroll for almost every line, even after I open to full screen at 1024x768. But I can read ASCII just fine, even in the small preview window.
So what happens? I read less of the newsletter — and that's the result I don't want with readers of my newsletters.
I'm going to post a new topic asking about this.. see you there [webmasterworld.com].
yep
and the most efficient way to do this is to send a text email with links to the newsletter as a web page...unless you consider that the user's choice doesn't begin until after they have downloaded an unnecessarily large email
I can see merits to both camps opinions, but I do agree this is very much a question of knowing your audience and producing communications relevant and useful to them.
A 'corporate' receipient, who is likely to have a permanent internet connection (and therefore may be used to viewing 'high-bandwidth' content) may not consider an HTML newsletter a 'large download'.
Where as a dial-up user may find this a complete pain.
I do agree with Joshie that sometimes we see things very much from our own perspective, 'marketing myopia' is a known pitfall for those engaged in producing comms.
I really feel it's a question of careful targeting and listening to feedback, for which this Forum is an excellent benchmark.
Thanks again.
I'm in a similar situation here and some time within the next month or tow will be setting up a system that doesn't allow html mail
extra band width is also a factor in our case...but I've also managed to keep the place completely free of viruses and worms and I want it to stay that way
On most HTML Newsletters, the graphics are hyperlinks to a web based image file. This, of course, means that once you are offline, you get those nasty red crosses where the graphics should be. Sort of takes away some of the flamboyance for those not on a permanent internet connection.
However, I was looking at a back issue of one Newsletter that I receive in HTML and noticed that all the graphics were still in place whilst I was offline. I looked at the code and saw the following (general)reference for the pictures :-
<IMG alt="" hspace=0 src="cid:005901c13432$34421640$0600a8c0@markus"
How does this work ?
TC
As long as the image is moved to the persons cache, they should not be getting red x's when in offline mode. Of course they will if they cleared their cache.
Also, I disagree with some of the comments above. We just sent out our first HTML newsletter, and have gotten a great response compared to the old plain version. The program I use is Group Mail from:
www.Infacta.com
The nice people of this site recommended numerous email programs, and I found this one to be the best, and we bought it. It's great!
On a personal level, I get so many emails that I tend to notice the html ones more than plain text because they stand out. I still end up deleting both anyway quickly, but I think HTML newsletters are more eye catching and professional.
How does this work ?
Netscape messanger for example has the options a) keep an image at the original location or b) don't. If you enable a) the pic is inserted per link by the html email, else netscape includes the pic in the mail. The first has the advantage that the email is smaller, the second that the reader doesn't need to be online to view pics.
I have used both methods. But if you want to use the second see that the pics are small enough. Some subscribe to webmail account and there may be a size limit.
the easiest way, is word, then cut and paste into a outlook express new mail, and remember the old bcc
for a professional personalised look, try something like gammadyne, you can use dreamweaver for the file if you want.
most html-allowed mail clients are different to each you need to get them all, test your html email, to see it can work on all of them.
you may want to pander to each email client if so set up separate lists for each client. Try to get them to reply to a confirmation email. use the x-mailer info at the start of the confirmation reply email to tell which mail client they have.
topcat embed you images instead of hyperlinking them
I've read through the posts on this topic, and I'm wondering if someone can help me out.
I've been researching how to create an HTML newsletter, and I understand how to create the page in Dreamweaver, however, it's getting the code into the e-mail that I don't understand.
I'm working on a Mac, OS 9.1, and I've found a lot of information on bringing the code into Outlook Express. However, the latest version of Outlook Express is 5.1, and it doesn't seem to offer the ability to send HTML mail anymore.
So, I've turned to Netscape Messenger 4.75, but I can't seem to figure out how to bring my code into the source code of the e-mail. The "edit source" doesn't allow you to copy code into the window.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
Thanks!
Julie
You could try looking at the top of this thread where several contributors were a great help to me.
