Web Development Blog

Reaching large groups of potential customers has never been easy. However, the ability to speak directly to customers makes the process well worth it. Once upon a time a company’s only choice was to send mass mailings of pamphlets or newsletters to thousands of addresses, at a substantial cost. Now, however, almost everyone has access to an email account (or several). The purpose of email, of course, is to allow you to reach anyone anywhere virtually instantly, without having to worry about paper, envelopes, or postage. Modern email clients can even interpret HTML code, allowing you to style emails in any way you want. Surely this marks the end of all of your mass mailing troubles, right? Unfortunately, mass mailings are still fraught with challenges and limitations.

When sending a mass mailing, you must somehow organize the contact information for all of your recipients. Keeping a list of email addresses is much easier now than saving thousands of mailing addresses used to be. The easiest way to store email addresses is to simply enter them into a text file, putting each address on its own line. Modern mail merge software should be able to interpret that text file and get each address from it. Sending thousands of emails at once is also a challenge, but companies can purchase several programs which make it easier to send HTML newsletters. One handy program is called World Merge. Another option is Auto Mailer. Both of these programs automate the mail merge process, and work with HTML source code to send an HTML newsletter to a list of up to thousands of addresses. Both programs (and many others that are available) are less than $100 for a full version. You can also download and use trial versions to make sure the process works for what you need. Once you automate the sending process, you can then design and build your newsletter.

An HTML newsletter is essentially the same thing as any HTML web page. Creating an HTML newsletter is not complicated, but the many restrictions and limitations of email clients make it difficult. The latest version of Microsoft Outlook, for example, does not support CSS-created background images, so be sure to avoid those in your layout. In fact, many CSS design elements are not fully supported by various clients, so you should be careful choosing which ones to use. Most email clients lack support for floating elements, which is the primary CSS style used as an alternate to table-based layouts in websites, so table-based layouts are the way to go in a newsletter. You must also keep all code within the “body” tags of the layout. When viewing a newsletter in an email with Yahoo! or Gmail, the “head” sections are stripped from the code. Any “style” or “script” tags within the “head” section will not be executed.

Click here to see what CSS elements modern email clients can support.

As a special note, remember to thoroughly test your newsletter before you send it to your customers. An HTML newsletter might be a good way to get repeat business, but a malfunctioning HTML newsletter is an even better way to lose it. Set up a separate list of email addresses that you have control of to see how the newsletter looks before you send it to your official list. This way you can make sure it all looks right (try to test it in as many clients as possible). You can always create free email accounts in Yahoo! or Gmail to have more places to test the email.

Put simply, what should you do to design a newsletter? First, the layout should only be about 600 pixels wide (considerably narrow compared to modern web design standards), to fit inside email clients. Second, don’t put anything inside the “head” tag of your HTML. Third, you will have to use table-based layouts, even though modern web trends shy away from tables as much as possible. Fourth, do not use background images anywhere in your newsletter, as Outlook 2007 will not display them properly. Fifth, avoid javascript, flash, or other dynamic add-ons entirely, as they most likely not work at all. Finally, thoroughly test your email before you send it, to make sure it looks the way it was meant to.

Follow this advice and in no time you will be sending professional quality HTML newsletters to your potential customers.