Email Marketing: HTML tips

HTML Tips for the Email Marketer
If you are an email marketer and you want your emails, newsletters, and the like to look as professional as possible while garnering the most response then you need to learn a little about HTML. Fortunately, HTML does not have to be confusing or tricky. As long as you can read and follow directions you will be able to include basic HTML in your newsletters and emails and make them look more professional without having to pay a professional to do it. The following tips will help you with your HTML.

Tip #1 Multipart-Alternative
When setting up your emails and newsletters you will want to have the HTML email display in “Multipart alternative format. What this means is that the email has the plain text and the html versions embedded. This is so that all those “plain text” folks out there can still view the email if they don’t choose to see it in HTML. There are several systems that can help you with this.

Tip #2 Images
With HTML you won’t be sending email files as attachments. Instead, you will have the images hosted on your server and the email’s code will have absolute paths to the images. This means that you will have to use your server’s web address in the code so that the images are actually embedded within the email. It sounds tricky, but it’s actually pretty straight forward. Once you try it a few times you will have it down.

Tip #3 Preview Pane
When you are designing your newsletters or other emails for email marketing you need to design it for the preview pane. This will give you a maximum of 600 pixels to work with and 500 pixels is probably playing it safer. The reason why is that the vast majority of recipients will not double click the email to open it to wide screen. So, don’t design it for full screen. Instead, design the email for how it is most likely to be viewed.

Tip #4
Don’t try to use CSS In emails to get the appearance you have in mind. It’s not reliable in email and won’t work right. Instead, use font tags, shim.gifs, and tables because they are what will allow you to create the “Look” you are going for.

These are just a few tips to help you with HTML in your email marketing campaign. Remember, though, that it takes time to get it right and learn all the ins and outs. In time, however, you will have HTML down and creating a newsletter will be easy and fast. Be patient and you will succeed with HTML!