Hello Alex, Kay and all. I am new to this list (having been lurking for a
week), learning to use OpenOffice (and enjoying it) and minimally conversant
with OpenSource applications & ideology, all of which I find very
impressive.
My competency is in creative development, media, marketing and
communications, in light of which I offer a perspective on the OO.o
newsletter:
While I know that 'everyone' is going to html, I suggest that the
marketplace is not yet sufficiently equipped to recieve html email. The
attached screenshot shows what will most likely come up as a 'first look' in
the majority of Inboxes... which in strictest promotional terms means that
the space which *should* be devoted to your 'hook' (lead information that
draws the reader deeper into the content) is being 'wasted' on a blank
graphic.
Also consider that a substantial number of the 'professional end users' (who
are not employed in IT but are in many instances 'the decision makers') are
minimally technology literate... which I do not say as a discredit but
simply as diagnosis of facts so that the 'needs' of the marketplace are
pragmatically assessed in terms of providing a legitimate service to the
clients we seek to serve.
In this light consider that what these professionals greatly value is
'consistency'. We (all of us) have a job to do and we want to do it
efficiently, effectively and competently... and it drives us (the non-tech
office worker) nutz when we have to spend half of our 'production time'
learning the nuances of some new-and-improved 'upgrade' in order to do what
we knew how to do perfectly last week... (smile).
And finally, it might be worth considering that html formatting raises one's
'score' with the spam-gods, which can raise a newsletter's bounce-back rate
considerably and cascade to blacklisting by various ISPs.
Thus in terms of newsletter design I would suggest continuing to distribute
in (creatively formatted) plain text but also offering a link to a nicely
formatted PDF version and/or a link to a webpage where the html formatted
version (optimally with photos/graphics) is posted.
Anyway, all just my opinion and perhaps not of any use...??? In any event, I
am enjoying using OpenOffice because (so far at least) the process of
'learning' has been highly intuitive, making for an easy transition from the
closed source applications I have been using for all these many years.
Thanks!!! ~Christine Beems
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