Email Marketers: How to Use HTML

Feb 18
11:29

2009

Aaron Goldberg

Aaron Goldberg

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HTML email is not as advanced as some people might imagine and the old methods that worked years ago are still being used. The last thing is to use some HTML to get the newsletter to the level you want it to be and for it to look its best.

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You have your newsletter written and are excited about sending it out to your subscribers. The last thing is to use some HTML to get the newsletter to the level you want it to be and for it to look its best. The problem is,Email Marketers: How to Use HTML Articles you don’t know that much about HTML. Fortunately, it’s not that difficult to learn and while there are many different things you will need to learn the following tips will help you along the way to ensure that your newsletters look great while displaying correctly across email platforms.

When it comes to background colors and that is that many times they won’t work. This is especially true with email applications that are web based like Hotmail or Gmail. That because the body tag will be eliminated in favor of the web based mail application’s logo. HTML email is not as advanced as some people might imagine and the old methods that worked years ago are still being used. That means if you want the email to have a background color the easiest way to do it is to use a 100% wide table and assign it a bgcolor. Then, you’ll have your background color.
Something else you will need to keep in mind is the plain text version. Lots of coders think about this at the very end and then do a sloppy job. The problem with this is that many spam filters will assume that this is trash and will send it straight to the junk folder.

Spam filters are very sensitive to emails from email marketers anyway so if you do anything a little off it’s likely the email will go to the trash. Don’t let this happen to you. Instead, pay attention to the plain text version of your email and ensure that it is correct so it will be delivered as is. With plain text emails it is recommended to hard wrap them at 60 characters or as many as 70 characters. You need to create a ruler across the top of your plain text editor. Just take any letter and type it 60 times or more across the top. Don’t use Microsoft Word, but rather an editor for plain text. Type your content and when you reach the end of the ruler hit return.

These are just a few tips to help you with your email marketing campaigns and to ensure your HTML is good! Just remember, old school HTML is much better and it will work for you. Just be patient, take your time, and it will all work out!