Email Marketers: How to Use HTML

You have your newsletter written and are excited about sending it out to your subscribers. The last thing is to use some HTML to get the newsletter to the level you want it to be and for it to look its best. The problem is, you don’t know that much about HTML. Fortunately, it’s not that difficult to learn and while there are many different things you will need to learn the following tips will help you along the way to ensure that your newsletters look great while displaying correctly across email platforms.

When it comes to background colors and that is that many times they won’t work. This is especially true with email applications that are web based like Hotmail or Gmail. That because the body tag will be eliminated in favor of the web based mail application’s logo. HTML email is not as advanced as some people might imagine and the old methods that worked years ago are still being used. That means if you want the email to have a background color the easiest way to do it is to use a 100% wide table and assign it a bgcolor. Then, you’ll have your background color.
Something else you will need to keep in mind is the plain text version. Lots of coders think about this at the very end and then do a sloppy job. The problem with this is that many spam filters will assume that this is trash and will send it straight to the junk folder.

Spam filters are very sensitive to emails from email marketers anyway so if you do anything a little off it’s likely the email will go to the trash. Don’t let this happen to you. Instead, pay attention to the plain text version of your email and ensure that it is correct so it will be delivered as is. With plain text emails it is recommended to hard wrap them at 60 characters or as many as 70 characters. You need to create a ruler across the top of your plain text editor. Just take any letter and type it 60 times or more across the top. Don’t use Microsoft Word, but rather an editor for plain text. Type your content and when you reach the end of the ruler hit return.

These are just a few tips to help you with your email marketing campaigns and to ensure your HTML is good! Just remember, old school HTML is much better and it will work for you. Just be patient, take your time, and it will all work out!

More Tips for HTML and Email Marketing

There are many tips for email marketers when it comes to HTML and newsletters, emails, and the like. Unfortunately, there is not one standard for HTML emails across all platforms. There are just too many out there and that means when you are designing something and using HTML you need to leave yourself enough room that the display will look good in all programs. You will also need to test your HTML in various programs including Gmail, Hotmail, AOL, Apple Mail, Outlook 2003, 2000, Outlook Express, Eudora, Mozilla, Apple Entourage, Lotus Notes, Comcast, EarthLink, and many others. It’s amazing, but the HTML code will display differently in all of these. Because of this it is important to keep your html as simple as possible. It’s the only way to ensure your code will look good in all programs.

If you are going to use CSS make sure you do it with inline CSS. Linked files won’t work and will fail miserably. You want to use very little CSS and only for colors or fonts if necessary. Remember, you want to incorporate the CSS in a way that if it fails it isn’t so bad! Also, keep in mind that when using CSS you need to embed it below the body tag ever time. Otherwise, it won’t appear because many email applications that are browser based, like hotmail, Gmail, and the like, will take off the body, head, and html tags so they don’t mix in with the actual web page.
Remember, too, that a period cannot begin any of your HTML code or the lines of your email. This is important to keep in mind because quite a few email servers interpret this as the command for the end of the message. Anything below that period will be stripped away and won’t be seen by your recipients. As a result, it is very important to pay attention to your HTML and CSS and ensure that your email is received as intended. If you have CSS that begins with periods then you need to make sure you add spaces beforehand so it won’t appear as if this is the end of the page command.

Now, as much as you might like the idea of embedding movie files, JavaScript, Flash, or ActiveX in your email newsletter or other marketing emails you need to go ahead and forget it. Of course, you can embed it, but the question is why would you when probably every single one of your subscribers has an anti virus program that will block the application from running? That’s the last thing you want so keep it simple even if you prefer the style of the files mentioned above.