No Time for "Pretty" Ezines
If you have a newsletter, or plan to start
one up, you may be
wondering if you can send
out those 'pretty’ HMTL ezines. Well,
of
course you can. But SHOULD you?
If how you spend your time is important,
then I think not.
When crafting a text-only newsletter, you
take time to outline,
draft, and edit your
work. When it’s correct, you format
a
65-character line length to prevent email
ugliness, and voila!
your email newsletter is
ready to send.
However, if it’s going out as HTML,
you’re not done yet. Not by a
long shot.
First, you have to create a web page to
hold your text. Even if
you have a pre-made
template with your logo and other
graphics
ready to go, you still need to
format headings with the correct
fonts, and
that’s only if you’re using cascading style
sheets. If
you don’t use CSS, you’ll probably
have to add more than just the
header
tags.
Next, you’ll need a weekend - a week if
you’re a newbie - to sort
out how individual
email clients and Internet service
providers
handle various HTML codes and
objects.
Some email clients can’t read HTML email
at all, while others
accept only a limited
number of codes and tags. AOL is
particularly
finicky.
If you want to reach your subscribers who
use AOL, you need to
know that the following
HTML objects are not supported by the
AOL
client mail.
·
ActiveX
·
Audio
·
External Style
Sheets
·
Frames and
IFrames
·
Java
·
Meta
Refresh
·
Scripts: JavaScript, VBScript, Perl,
etc.
·
Tooltips
·
Video
Seems simple enough, doesn’t it? Just use
pure HTML and avoid the
bells and
whistles.
Not so fast! To get the body
portion of the page to render
correctly,
you’ll have to include a MIME-type header, which
is
used to send non-ASCII information, and
allows email programs to
display images
instead of a garbled mess that looks like
this:
#&½A÷Á\dÚLìõAÓm0``g´À’¨LI¹Àµ:¿Ei£ñãsÉ
¶=r`f×!!gi9aã-<éâÖHäR©ÕJ+Îfþè
¯QÀeçx}`&
»t-ͪá&/gE3’]$§E;
&UDçWyk,!
eÊÑl®~õ"ñ}Õ¡ÜB,%sØS!Eà~|NÜ×v½³à6¹¦m*%s
¨ÅL2ÎpÙ0-
Oh, yes. You’ll also to include a
Content-type header too! … and
those are just
AOL’s requirements.
Even if you learn how to make HTML email
work, some folks
specifically choose to
receive only ASCII email. They know that
HTML
email can expose them to viruses and intrusive
programs.
These folks might be annoyed to
receive the garbled mess that is
your
newsletter. Annoyed enough to click that
unsubscribe link,
which was the only thing in
your ezine that was legible.
Let’s assume your ezine survives the trip
through cyberspace and
arrives in all its
HTML glory. Will your subscriber be able
to
read the text? Are the fonts large enough
and dark enough to see
without a problem?
Maybe you can see the page, but
sight-impaired
readers have no way to apply
user-accessibility options in an
HTML
document. They too will unsubscribe, even if it
means
digging out the magnifying glass to
find the link.
Here’s yet another way that HTML email
wastes time. It takes as
long to download as
any other web page, and some of
your
subscribers are still on 33 - 56K
dial-up connections. Your
over-sized email is
costing them money; and that fact is
costing
you subscribers.
Honestly, is 'pretty’ email worth the
time and challenges? That’s
up to you.
If the appearance of your newsletter is
that important, upload it
as a page to your
server and email the URL to your
ezine
subscribers. That way, you may prevent
a few unsubscriptions.
Better yet, you’ll
have more time to play with your kids,
or
whatever you like to do.
Your time is much more than money - it’s
your life.
Author's Resource: Article by Rosalind Gardner,
author of the best-selling "Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other People's Stuff Online". To learn how you too can succeed in Internet and affiliate marketing, please visit
http://NetProfitsToday.com
(To use this article on your website please review Reprint Guidelines.)
© Copyright Rosalind Gardner, All
Rights Reserved.
Recommended Services
Actually, I'll only recommend ONE autoresponder service - Aweber.
Although I've used others, Aweber is without the best, most full-featured service available. I've been doing business with them since 1998, and am more delighted with their product and customer service every day.
Get your Aweber Autoresponder account today!
|
