email newsletters/marketing emails

teqbra · 11-03-2009, 04:12 PM

I've been trying to create an email newsletter for some time now, googling so many queries that I've lost count. But I just can't seem to find out how to do it. Is it just a case of copying the same structure of a webpages HTML code. Or does it differ???
I'm really stuck with this so any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Tom

eugenetyson · 11-03-2009, 04:19 PM

You would be better off with a campaign monitor http://www.campaignmonitor.com/

If you can afford a service you should get it. We use this one http://www.newsweaver.ie/

teqbra · 11-03-2009, 04:26 PM

thanks for the reply. We use mailchimp for ours, but it's a client that wants the newsletter designing, and wants us to design it, build it in HTML format and send the completed code across to them. So I'm not sure if there's any way we could use a service like that, could we?

eugenetyson · 11-03-2009, 04:35 PM

I'm not sure, you'd have to setup an account with mailchimp or other for them?

Depends if they want their stuff analysed, who clicked what link and etc. it all helps with email marketing to see if the emails are generating business etc.

I did a few using MS Outlook and simply created a table, then put a table inside a table etc. and styled it that way.

It's sent out every month to many different accounts, hotmail, gmail, etc. and so far no complaints.

But I don't get any feedback on who clicked what link or any stats on how well the email did.

(I originally started designing the email in Dreamweaver, but due to time-constraints I had to move out of Dreamweaver and do it in Outlook, not my preferred choice and it was a hack job. I wanted to go the html and css route, but didn't get enough time to explore that option)

teqbra · 11-03-2009, 05:08 PM

Thanks, some great feedback there. I'll put it forward to the client about the possibility of setting up a mailchimp account for them and let them know the plus points, analysing feedback etc.

I see what you mean about the time constraints with your own work, i can imagine it taking a while. But from what i can gather, there are lots of problems with the older email clients when using CSS. Apparently Outlook 7 is less advanced in reading CSS than its predecessors. which is quite strange, but oh so typical of a windows application

vanishdesign · 11-03-2009, 05:10 PM

CampaignMonitor supports reselling, not sure if that applies here

Pix_Z · 11-03-2009, 06:53 PM

I started doing e-mail a couple months ago using a program called Group Mail. It's pretty straightforward and they have a free version if you're not going to send to very many people.

http://www.group-mail.com/asp/common/downloads.asp

Works pretty much like eugenetyson said--no statistics feedback on who opened it, etc. That's pretty typical of broadcast e-mail software. You have to go to a service vendor like mailchimp for that.

I got a little help from the Group Mail staff and they said that you have to use internal style sheets/inline CSS as not all e-mail clients process external CSS. They recommended old-fashioned HTML coding since not all e-mail clients even recognize CSS at all.

xc-runner · 11-03-2009, 08:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teqbra

I see what you mean about the time constraints with your own work, i can imagine it taking a while. But from what i can gather, there are lots of problems with the older email clients when using CSS. Apparently Outlook 7 is less advanced in reading CSS than its predecessors. which is quite strange, but oh so typical of a windows application

ewwww >>> http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/

vanishdesign · 11-03-2009, 09:50 PM

CSS has always had poor support in email clients, both online and offline. If you take a look at any promotional HTML email in your inbox you'll see the layout is table-based.

teqbra · 11-05-2009, 09:30 AM

I've tried sending this code in an email to an email account on another machine in the same room as me, and it didn't work, just appeared as HTML code. Does anyone know why it's not working???

<html>
<head>
</head>

<body>
<table border="1">
<tr>
<th>Name</th>
<th>Age</th>
<th>Hometown</th>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Tom</td>
<td>22</td>
<td>Wigan</td>
</tr>
</table>
</body>
</html>