Making HTML E-Mail Newsletters Work

This article contains older information. Go here for newer information on e-mail marketing.

I get some HTML e-mails. I even got some HTML spam recently. They all share the same problem in common.

They're over-designed. They have pretty graphics, lots of frames, boxes and tables galore. They look like modern Web pages. But an e-mail inbox isn't the Web, even if it can accept HTML documents.

Objections to HTML E-Mail

So even leaders in this game, like Michael Tchong (http://www.iconocast.com) and Multimedia Marketing Group (http://www.mmgco.com), still rely upon .txt as their base e-mail technology. Tchong's list features lots of ads, which do well for those who buy them, and MMG is a fast-growing company (they mail my own list, A-Clue.Com, every week), but even though MMG installed a server last fall that handles HTML, it hasn't made the switch.

The reasons most-often cited for this are incompatibility among various e-mail clients, and the fact most users still don't have HTML-capable clients. It's true, there are minor differences in how Eudora, Microsoft Outlook and Netscape Navigator (the three most-popular clients) render HTML, but they're not huge. It's also true that about half of all e-mail users still don't have HTML-capable clients. But everyone has a browser, and you can always save an HTML message to a file, then look at it in the browser.

KISS Design

The objections wouldn't be relevant, in other words, if HTML e-mails were properly designed, and properly offered. So now I'm going to tell you how to do that. KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid. Remember that the H in HTML stands for HyperText, and what makes HTML powerful is its support for hyperlinks. That is, when you click on an Internet address in an HTML document, you go to that address. It's amazing how many publishers have forgotten, or chosen to ignore, this fact. They've replicated all the wonders of their other media - columns, multiple pages, fonts, and pictures in boxes -- on the Web. They've taken the links out. It is, as I like to say in my own newsletter, "Clueless."

A-Clue.Com (http://www.a-clue.com) is offered in two versions, .html and .txt, but .html is the default, and it is only 2K larger, on average, than the .txt version. The .html version is created (with Microsoft Word 8.0 and Navigator 4.2 for adding the links) by inserting the .txt version into a simple template (I changed it and simplified it further for 1999) which features just one table, containing the week's headlines. (I insert last week's issue at the top of this week's text, after it's written, then cut-and-paste.) Of course, I also make liberal use of hyperlinks. Some are to home pages, but others are to online news articles, and one is to a location on Amazon.Com where you can buy a book I co-wrote. The result is that .html users get an attractive lay-out, links that actually reduce the amount of text they see, and that is all.

Dana's Iron Laws

Let me summarize this design philosophy with what I call Dana's Iron Law of E-Mail. 1K in my browser is 1MB in my e-mail client. Shorter is always better. Now, there is one thing I would like to do that would increase the size of my .html file. That is, I'd like to insert some ads. But I've done extremely well, on my own bottom line, without the hassles -- on anyone's part -- of advertising. I now make my entire living as a columnist, instead of just a freelance reporter. I no longer go from month-to-month, sending out queries and hoping to interest editors in my stuff. I have regular clients who like A-Clue.Com, and who pay me to do similar work for them, every month. Take them together, and I make as much money as I ever did when I was employed as a print magazine editor.

If I do take an ad, however, it will be a static banner with a link. I don't want fancy JavaScript, I don't want fancy graphics, and I don't want any online games. A banner with a link that will activate a hyperlink or a mailto: window will serve my readers and my advertisers well. The first is more important than the second.

That, by the way, reminds me of Dana's Second Iron Law of E-Mail. Serve the reader first. In addition, serve him (or her) second, last and always. If it's not worth spending time on in your own browser window, it's not worth your reader's time, either. Work on it until it is worth a reader's time. Finally, let me return to a point I glossed over earlier. At A-Clue.Com, .html is the default. You can get .txt if you want, and we link to a page where you can make that change in every issue, but when you subscribe to A-Clue.Com you first get .html.

By staying with the two Iron Laws and using HTML as a default, I've got a successful letter which over 90% of my readers take in the .html format. Even without advertising, it has transformed me from a struggling freelancer to a recognized columnist in less than two years. If you know what you want, and server your reader first, you can get the same results I do. Good luck.

[Editor: While Web Marketing Today is currently staying with a .txt format, we're watching newsletters like Dana's to see how HTML can make improvements. Thanks, Dana, for being a pioneer in this.]

Read additional articles from Web Marketing Today, Issue 53, February 1, 1999