On 7 Aug 2000, 13:02, Tiziano Bianchi wrote:
> I would like to send out an HTML-formatted e-mail to my
> customers, but I am not sure whether everybody would be
> able to read the message without too many problems with
> HTML tags. My customers use a variety of e-mail clients
> and might get their mail through Yahoo!mail, AOL, private
> ISPs, etc....
And there you touch upon one of the inherent problems of HTML in e-
mail. No two e-mail clients handle HTML the same way. Many e-mail
recipients still use e-mail clients that are not capable of rendering
HTML in anything more than a clump of text that looks like garbage to
them.
HTML was meant to be displayed in a browser. If you want to get an
HTML message across to customers, there is no better place to do this
than the World Wide Web.
> Is there a site where I can have my e-mail message
> analyzed and that would tell me if there are any e-mail
> clients that would have problems in displaying the message
> in its original form?
No. We can analyse your HTML code for correctness and compliance to
standards, but as I said the standards are written to have HTML display
in web browsers and not e-mail clients.
> I could, of course, send out an HTML-formatted test e-mail
> to the customers and wait for their feedback, but I prefer
> not to do that.
Not advisable. That feedback could include some very annoyed and angry
customers who do not appreciate the added bandwidth of an HTML message,
not to mention the trouble it might cause. I've known of people whose
system froze due to the receipt of HTML. The last thing you need as a
business man is to alienate your customers.
> Thanks in advance for all your help.
I think you should first concentrate on making a great web site that
will sell your products. At first, use a text-only newsletter to keep
customers and would-be customers informed of your business -- be it
specials or sales or new items or anything else you wish to call
attention. A text newsletter can be a fantastic promotional tool for
you.
As to HTML mail, you can later add that in as an opt-in option to your
customers. Let them first give you permission to send them HTML e-mail.
That is an important point with HTML mail. *Always* get your
recipients permission before sending HTML mail.
For those customers preferring not to get HTML e-mail, you still would
have a strong, promotional text announcements list. And as long as
they all legitimately subscribed to your lists, then everyone should be
happy. :-)
Alan
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
