3 Strategies For Writing A Great HTML Newsletter
Having a quality HTML newsletter can mean the difference between being able to communicate with your audience and making people simply leave your website. These newsletters are delivered to your subscribers inbox, making it very personalized which helps you to develop meaningful and long term relationships with your subscribers. There are countless ways to make your HTML newsletter look and be interactive so it will entice your email marketing subscribers. If you want to create the best possible newsletter for your internet marketing campaign, follow these three strategies:
1) Incorporate MIME
By incorporating MIME as a multi-part alternative, you will be able to get more out of your email marketing campaign. This will give email readers the ability to read your newsletters even if they have a hard time seeing the HTML format. In other words, you will be sending your newsletter in a text format, as well as in the HTML format. It is also important to include a MIME alternative for the fact that many spam filtering programs will tag your mail as spam if one is not found. You also need to understand that your email software or service has to be able to support MIME and multi-part mail.
2) Understand How Images Work
Most people in internet marketing know that HTML newsletter permit you to add a variety of images, allowing you to show your creativity. However, you also need to understand that the images you want to have in your newsletter have to be uploaded to a publicly accessible web server. In order to do this, you typically have to use the service provided by your web hosting company and store your images in a folder. Then, to get the images to appear when your newsletter is opened, you have to embed their links into your HTML code. It is best to link your using absolute links, not relative links. With an absolute link, you list the entire URL of the image. An absolute link may look like this: "thesite.com/img/macbook.jpg". However, the relative link for this image would look like this: "macbook.jpg". The second link will work for a website, but it usually will not work for HTML emails.
3) Always Use Inline Coding
When you are designing your HTML newsletter, it is best to keep your code inline. This refers to everything from HTML code to cascading style sheets. Some people attempt to place CSS in the header for the purpose of having a universal style, but it is usually removed by the subscribers email reader. This happens a lot with web-based mail clients, like Gmail and Hotmail. It is important to realize the CSS positioning also does not work well with HTML newsletters. For this reason many internet marketers suggest using more basic positioning tactics like tables and GIFs.
Double Check That Its Right
In order to be certain your HTML newsletter looks the way you want it to and has the best impact possible on your subscribers, you should send a test copy to yourself. After you see the results, you can either edit it or send it out to your subscribers. When you get the newsletter, check to make sure all images loaded correctly, all the links worked, and that all HTML code rendered correctly in a large variety of email clients. You do not want to be seen as a novice. However, in order to look like an experienced professional, you need to put the time and energy into making sure your newsletter is perfect.
You can also find below a pretty good video on creating a HTML newsletter I've come across recently.
Posted in Internet Marketing
