Help With Creating and Sending Html E-mails?

[jeweledbluerose23]

Over the last couple of days I've had a few customers ask me if I could send them sales letters based on their interests that included pictures and a way to purchase directly from their e-mail account. I would like to do this for them, however, though I know some html and have looked through various tech forums about this, I have no clue on how or where to even begin.

Is software required? Must the page be hosted on some sort of server so the pictures and text show up the way you have placed them? I'm basically clueless on this, so any and all tips and tricks will be welcomed. :)

[msbeejay]

I am sure Support Dude or Tim can answer this better than me...

But, here's an idea (maybe) IF you have a eStore with your inventory and prices then you should be able to copy & paste whatever is apropos for those customers from your catalog site complete with pictures and description to an email...

Generally speaking all links should remain intact depending on your ISP and then you save it for future mailings...

God Bless and Keep on surfing everyday!

[inge]

MS Outlook and Outlook express have HTML set as the default.
I don't know much about other e-mail clients, but I guess most of them have it.
Hotmail and other web-based mail program also have HTML as their default.

I think HTML is a nuisance in e-mail, and it presents a security risk. Therefore I have set my e-mail client to show only plain text.
If I need to send something as HTML I create a web page for it an send the link to it in the mail.

[dehawkinz]

I agree with Inge - my email client is set to plain-text by default.

One company I deal with have a solution to the problem - they send multi-part emails, with both plain text and html content, the plain text content includes a link to a html page that mimics the email, so you can 'read' your email online :)

Thunderbird will send multi-part emails if you want to write html emails

DeHawkinz

[jeweledbluerose23]

I am sure Support Dude or Tim can answer this better than me...

But, here's an idea (maybe) IF you have a eStore with your inventory and prices then you should be able to copy & paste whatever is apropos for those customers from your catalog site complete with pictures and description to an email...

Generally speaking all links should remain intact depending on your ISP and then you save it for future mailings...

God Bless and Keep on surfing everyday!

I will have to give this method a shot and see what becomes of it. I think I've tried that before and nothing happened, but I might be remembering something else. So will see what happens. Thanks for your input, it's appreciated.

MS Outlook and Outlook express have HTML set as the default.
I don't know much about other e-mail clients, but I guess most of them have it.
Hotmail and other web-based mail program also have HTML as their default.

I think HTML is a nuisance in e-mail, and it presents a security risk. Therefore I have set my e-mail client to show only plain text.
If I need to send something as HTML I create a web page for it an send the link to it in the mail.

I've never liked html based e-mails myself, to slow to load and most the time they don't show at all, hence never learning how to do it myself, but since I now have customers asking for it and who prefer it over text e-mails I thought I would give it a shot and see what becomes of it.

Your idea about creating a web page to which each customer could go to instead intrigues me, and just may be the route I go, as long as it don't get to time consuming, since I would still want to keep it personalized to the customers interests as they have asked.

Thanks for your input, it's appreciated.

I agree with Inge - my email client is set to plain-text by default.

One company I deal with have a solution to the problem - they send multi-part emails, with both plain text and html content, the plain text content includes a link to a html page that mimics the email, so you can 'read' your email online

Thunderbird will send multi-part emails if you want to write html emails

Thanks dehawkinz for the tip on Thunderbird. I will look into it and see if that is the right solution for my customers and I. For now though until I am comfortable with html e-mails (if that is even a subject to ever get comfortable with) I will give inge's idea of creating a personalized web page for my customers to go to a try and see how well that goes, while I'm in the midst of learning something new.

Thanks again everyone for your replies. :)