E-Mail Marketing

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"I want my e-mail newsletter to stay within the width of the recipient's e-mail window in Outlook Express, so the reader doesn't have to scroll side-to-side to be able to read it. How do I do that?" -- Cynthia A Guy

Your newsletter readers will have their e-mail program open to all sorts of widths, so there's no one standard width. Allowing the width to be adjustable is accomplished by the HTML layout of your e-mail newsletter template.

Typically, two-column newsletters like mine are laid out using with what is called a "table," containing one or more "cells" that function as columns. The main table width can be either:

1. No set width, allowing the e-mail message to be able to adjust to different widths of e-mail windows.
   OR
2. A fixed width, such as WIDTH="600", thus forcing the table to stay open to a width of 600 pixels. In this case, the e-mail message won't adjust narrower than 600 pixels, even if the width of the recipient's e-mail window is narrower.

To keep your e-mail message width adjustable, you'll also need to set the columns or "cells" within the table to a percentage of the total table width (e.g., WIDTH="75%"), rather than to a fixed width (e.g., WIDTH="600").

The illustration shows how the Web Marketing Today e-mail template is set up. It can expand as wide as the reader's e-mail window. But since the masthead graphic is 494 pixels wide, the e-mail message can't adjust any narrower than 494 without the reader having to scroll back and forth horizontally to read it. I originally employed regular HTML characters within the masthead to spell out the name of the publication. Since HTML characters can wrap over to the next line when the width is narrower, this approach allowed my e-mail newsletter to be narrower than it can be at present.

This explanation is likely to confuse novices, since understanding HTML tables requires some degree of study and hands-on experience. If you need to learn more, I recommend Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to HTML, Graphics, and Beyond, by Jennifer Niederst (second edition; O'Reilly, 2003, ISBN 0596004842)