Are You Content With the Quality of Your Ezine? How to Send HTML-Formatted Emails in Outlook Express
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Dina Giolitto November 17, 2006
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Dina Giolitto |
Dina Giolitto is a copywriting consultant and ghostwriter with 10 years
of experience writing corporate print materials and web content. Trust
her with your next e-book, article series or web project, and make a
lasting impression on your audience of information-hungry prospects.
Visit http://www.wordfeeder.com for more details. |
Dina Giolitto
has written 1 articles for WebKnowHow. |
View all articles by Dina Giolitto... |
How many times has this happened to you: you've been slaving over
that email newsletter for hours, perfecting the tables, checking and
rechecking the copy, tweaking image files. You're finally ready to
send, hooray! You take a deep breath, click... and what happens? Your
email newsletter goes out to thousands of people looking like crap!
WHY? There was a problem with the images being read. It's enough to
drive a marketer over the edge...
Tip: Take this Article and SAVE IT to Your Desktop. Next time
you want to send out an ezine, open this up and read the directions
carefully!
1. Create your email newsletter in an HTML editor. If you don't
have one, purchase DreamWeaver or go for a freeware version here: http://nvu.com.
2. Create the "tabloid" where your newsletter will live. Use the
"insert table" or a similarly labeled function to do this. Think
logically, and create tables inside of tables where your various
sections will be placed.
3. Add stylistic elements. Choose a font for the text and
another for the headline. Decide if your tables should have a border or
not. Add cellpadding (10-15 pixels or so) to every table inside your
main table. Cellpadding gives your table's text and pictures a border
so they look cleaner and more professional.
4. This is important: Make sure that the page you created does
NOT have a background color. If your page has a background color or
file, it will create problems if you decide to pop the HTML code into
an email or on a network page that you own. In the editor I use, you
must click FORMAT and then "page colors and background to edit the
background color. Set it to NONE.
5. Fill in the details. Add all of the remaining elements
including great copy, images that have been properly named and uploaded
to your hosting server, and live links that your readers can click to
"learn more," "download," or "buy now". When you're satisfied with the
results, save as an .html file to your desktop or a properly labeled
folder and publish.
6. Prepare to copy the file. Open a new, blank email in
Microsoft Outlook Express. Go to the three tabs at the bottom - Edit,
Source, and Preview. You want to be in the SOURCE panel. Open up the
html file you created in the editor, and click VIEW>SOURCE. Click
Control-C.
7. Transfer the code to your email now. Go back to the email
SOURCE panel and do a CONTROL-V. Your code should flow in from the file
you saved. Save as a draft just in case you accidentally wipe out the
file, at least it'll be in your DRAFTS folder.
8. Take a good look at your newsletter. Do this in the EDIT tab
of your Microsoft Outlook Express. The graphics, tables and copy should
appear here looking virtually the way they looked in the HTML page you
created. If everything is shifted to the left, go back to the HTML
document, click the OUTSIDE table, click PROPERTIES, and designate
CENTER as your alignment.
9. FIX and SEND! Add the new code back to your email by
repeating steps 6 and 7 and then view your email in the EDIT panel once
again. When you're satisfied with the results, blind copy your contact
addresses, a catchy headline that will be noticed in people's email
boxes, and finally hit SEND.
As I mentioned earlier, sending out a newsletter that looks
sloppy and contains missing pictures gets a slap on the wrist! Don't
let it happen to you. If you keep these instructions handy, they may
prove useful for you one day. I know I plan to use them myself!
Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.
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