Says
Jessica, "As you discovered, your e-newsletter looks different to
your readers than you might expect. That's why it is so important
to test your newsletter in a variety of programs. The reason some
of the newsletters you are viewing have problems has to do with the
'header section' -- the most common cause of problems for HTML e-mail."
Jessica sent me a very long, technical explanation of what a "header"
is and how it determines what your reader sees in her e-mail window.
What follows is a highly simplified explanation -- which I include
only because I'm a firm believer in the power of understanding how
things work.
The "header" is the information contained at the top of an e-mail
message. It tells the e-mail program how to "read" and thus "present"
the information contained in the message.
The header for a simple text e-mail includes this information: MIME-Version:
1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
The header for an HTML newsletter, however, typically looks like this:
MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="ztUhI4XInF8W"
These are only two options for headers. There are many more and some
distribution programs add extra things to headers, which is usually
where the problems start.
Says Jessica, "If you use an e-newsletter template program such as
Constant Contact, the header issue is usually taken care of for you
so you don't have to worry about it so much. But if you're formatting
and sending your newsletter out yourself or through a distribution
program, it's imperative you test it as many ways as possible."
Jessica gives the following tips for formatting and testing your
e-newsletter:
1. When writing a text newsletter, use a program such as TextPad
(http://www.textpad.com). A general
purpose editor for plain text files, TextPad will automatically wrap
lines for you at a set character number -- as opposed to manually
counting and doing hard returns in NotePad (which is what I've been
doing for two years). To eliminate faulty line breaks, most experts
recommend a 60 - 65 character line count.
2. If you do an HTML newsletter, you should still write your
content in TextPad as the program also eliminates the problem of non-ascii
characters, such as em dashes and smart quotes, showing up like this:
–.
3. All newsletter publishers should view their newsletters
in AOL, Outlook, Hotmail, and Yahoo. AOL offers a 5-hour "Sampler
Plan" for $9.95 a month. If you use Microsoft Office, you probably
have Outlook on your computer. Hotmail and Yahoo accounts are free.
4. Understand how various e-mail programs work. That way, if
a subscriber complains about how your newsletter looks, you can start
the diagnostic process with his/her e-mail settings.
(After talking with Jessica, I spent a good hour with Eudora. Who
knew I could press a button titled, "Blah, blah, blah" to read headers
and set my options so I no longer see graphics or the "Preview" screen?)
Thank you, Jessica, for your help with this article. It was quite
enlightening!
You can learn more about Jessica -- and subscribe to her newsletter,
Newsletters in Focus, at: http://www.designdoodles.com
About the Author:
Dianna Huff specializes in results-oriented B-to-B marketing writing.
For your free "Top Ten Marketing Writing Mistakes" list and a complimentary
subscription to Dianna's monthly e-newsletter, "The MarCom Writer,"
go to http://www.dhcommunications.com/resources.htm.
Read this newsletter at:
http://www.MarketingNewz.com/2003/1215.html |
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| From the Forum: | | Help with html newsletter | I'm trying to send an html newsletter but when I test it, it is always received in html text not looking like the newsletter. What script do I need to use? Does anyone know?
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By
Dianna Huff
