|
|
|
Can You Hear Me Now?
I'm sure you've seen the cellular phone commercial, two customers are on cell phones and one says, “Can you hear me now?” takes a step back and repeats, “Can you hear me now?” While commercials like that make us laugh,...
Comparison Shopping
This morning while having my morning coffee and watching FOX News, I saw a segment about comparison-shopping. The segment was talking about how this was the 'latest craze' on the internet. Where have they been?
One of the really neat things about...
Streamline Your Website Pages
Squeezing the most efficient performance from your web pages is important. The benefits are universal, whether the site is personal or large and professional. Reducing page weight can speed up the browsing experience, especially if your visitors are...
The Coming Television Revolution
The revolution is just getting started and will begin to make its mark this year. By 2010, it will begin to take off. By 2025, it will be the standard for all TV viewing. It's called Internet Protocol Television, or IPTV for short. IPTV works...
The Wrong Email Format Can Destroy Your Offer
Which email format is more effective to use, Text or HTML? A good question, many experts have been debating over for awhile now, is which email format is more effective. It all depends on who you ask, many people prefer the text format over the...
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
8 reasons why HTML emails will hurt your marketing efforts
HTML emails have been around for a while. They look more
professional than their text-only counterparts and
actually generate better click-through rates. For
example, there are studies which show that click-through
rate for text emails for some industries is 7.1% while that
for HTML emails is 10%.
That being said, many marketers are still not keen to
publish in html. The reason: there are many problems
associated with HTML emails that can actually hurt,
rather than aid your marketing campaign. So let’s make
a list of how HTML can be hurtful to your marketing efforts.
1.Different email clients work differently
Internet Explorer (IE) is the dominant Web browsers used by
most web surfers, so when it comes to designing websites,
as long as the site presents well in IE, chances are, most
visitors to your site can view it properly.
Unfortunately, the equation becomes more complicated if we
are talking about emails since there are different types
of email clients (eg., Outlook Express, Eudora, web-based
email clients and so on), each with different capabilities,
settings, versions, etc. that make it more difficult to
predict how your email will look like at the recipients’
end. Generally speaking, the capabilities of web-based
email clients such as Hotmail, AOL and Yahoo! Mail are not
as robust as program-based email clients, so certain
effects that appear all right in program-based clients may
not show properly in web-based clients. Another example
is how some web-based clients cause your re-directs on URL
to break or appear as plain text making it such that links
that are crucial to making the sales do not work. The
worst blunder happens when your recipient receives a
marketing message that they can’t read at all. This is
the case with some email clients such as Pine that don’t
have the capability to read HTML or AOL that can’t
display HTML properly. Consider also the problem your
recipients will encounter if they use PDA and
Internet-capable cellular phone. These devices don’t
support HTML email at all.
2.The problem with printing HTML emails
Some of your recipients like to print their emails and read
them offline for a variety of reasons. The danger of this
to your marketing message is that graphical components in
your HTML email may appear as blank boxes with icons
indicating that graphics should be there, but are
unfortunately not there. When such blank boxes appear, you
are kissing goodbye to the hope that your graphical HTML
email will present a professional image to your
recipients. Instead of looking disjointed and untidy with
blank boxes, your message will have a greater impact if it
has no frills (i.e., plain text), but is presented in a
properly formatted way.
3.Connecting your users to the Internet when they
don’t intend that
Sometimes, the action of opening a HTML email will trigger
a connection to the Internet when your user doesn’t have
the intention to be connected. This results in
inconvenience to your users because they then have to
disconnect from the Internet.
4.HTML emails load slower
Internet users are an impatient bunch. At the very least,
HTML email
is twice the size of its text-based equivalent.
This means if you send your ezine in HTML, you tie up
more of your readers’ bandwidth during delivery and
receiving. Some of your ezine’s readers use dial-up.
This delay is much more noticeable to them than to your
broadband-user readers.
5.Security problems with HTML emails
You want to send your recipients your marketing message,
not a virus. The unfortunate reality is that HTML emails
transmit viruses easier than text-based emails. This is
because it is possible for attachments to automatically
execute code without the user opening the attachment.
6.HTML emails are harder to forward
Almost every marketer hopes for her campaign to be “viral”
(that is, your marketing message being passed on from one
recipient to another and another). It’s straightforward
to forward a text-based email from one recipient to her
friends and family. But when one tries to forward a HTML
email to another, incompatibility problems arise. The
forwarded email may not be received by its recipients
looking the same way as it looked when it was first
received by the original recipient.
7.More variables to measure makes it more
difficult to gauge your success
The success of a text-based email marketing message is easier
to measure than a HTML one simply because there are more
variables involved in the success of the latter. For
example, your email may have a poor response not because
the message was badly worded, but because the font you had
chosen is tiring for the eyes. Is your font even readable
by every computer? What about the visibility of your
typeface against the coloured background you have chosen?
The point is: there are so many variables in a HTML email
marketing campaign that it’s difficult for you to measure
what went right or what went wrong in a particular campaign.
8.Do you want to maintain three lists?
Due to the uncertainty of how your HTML email will look at
each recipient’s computer, businesses that choose to go
HTML also have to maintain a text and an AOL version of
their ezines. This means, you have to maintain three
lists, rather than one. If you are a large corporation
with a database-driven mailer that have a “sniffer”, you
can rely on your “sniffer” to tell which recipient is able
to receive which type of email and then send only that
version. But if you don’t have that capability,
maintaining three lists can be too challenging for your
home-based business.
In conclusion, if you don’t know for sure whether the
majority of your readers will be able to receive HTML
emails, send them text messages. If you really love the
idea of having a HTML newsletter, there’s always the
alternative of putting your newsletter up on your website
and providing a link at the beginning of your text-based
email which says, “Click here if you wish to view this
message in HTML”.
About the Author
Valerie Tay is the editor of BizBytes Newsletter. Written in an easy-reading style, this ezine is packed with practical and powerful tips on building, growing and marketing your business. New subscribers receive a FREE bonus eCourse. http://adhomebase.com/bizbytes.htm
|
|
|
|
|
| Broadband Internet access - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Broadband Internet access became a rapidly developing market in many areas in the early 2000s; one study found that broadband Internet usage in the United ... |
| en.wikipedia.org |
|
| UK Broadband Internet Access |
| Listings of UK broadband internet access providers and their prices, links to provider guides and reviews. |
| paler.com |
|
| PC World - Buying Guides - Broadband Internet |
| Buyers' Guide to Broadband Internet Contents ... For the majority of those looking to upgrade to broadband Internet for the business or home, it's all about ... |
| www.pcworld.idg.com.au |
|
| Broadband Internet Access Service Providers - High Speed Cable and ... |
| Discount offers for broadband high speed, cable and DSL Internet access service providers from Broadbandinfo.com. Additionally we provide free online high ... |
| www.broadbandinfo.com |
|
| Telewest - Broadband Internet - Digital TV - Phone - Cable ISP ... |
| . ... Jump to the Homepage [Accesskey '1']; Jump to Navigation menu [Accesskey 'n']; Jump to Main Content [Accesskey 'c']; Jump to Contact Us [Accesskey ... |
| www.telewest.co.uk |
|
| FCC Broadband Internet Access Page |
| List of resources from Federal Communications Commission regarding broadband Internet and access issues. |
| www.fcc.gov |
|
| BT.com: Broadband Internet, mobile and fixed telecommunications ... |
| National telecommunications provider. Details on products and services, plus user area. |
| www.bt.com |
|
| Primus > Home - Australia's leading Broadband Internet, Telephone ... |
| Primus / iPrimus - Australia's leading Broadband Internet, Telephone, Mobile, VoIP and Dial Up provider. |
| www.iprimus.com.au |
|
| Virgin.net ISP - Broadband Internet access, news and entertainment |
| Virgin.net, the UK's innovative Internet service provider. All you need for broadband and dial-up access, entertainment, information and news. |
| www.virgin.net |
|
| 1 24% of rural Americans have high-speed internet connections at ... |
| File Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML |
| Your browser may not have a PDF reader available. Google recommends visiting our text version of this document. |
|
| ADSL Plans - ADSL Modems - ADSL Broadband Internet - Telstra BigPond |
| Choose from BigPond broadband ADSL plans by speed and usage to suit your needs. View BigPond broadband ADSL modem options for your broadband ADSL internet ... |
| www.bigpond.com |
|
| ntl.com | broadband internet, telephone packages, cable tv |
| Broadband cable internet access from ntl, get high speed cable internet access at affordable prices. |
| www.home.ntl.com |
|
| Westnet - Broadband Internet, ADSL, Dialup, Web Hosting, Domain ... |
| Westnet provides a range of Broadband Internet, ADSL, Dialup, Web Hosting and Phone services Australia wide. Connect with Australia’s Number 1 ISP for ... |
| www.westnet.com.au |
|
| Broadband Internet : Find Broadband Internet Access Providers with ... |
| Find Broadband Internet Service Provider. TheBroadbandGuide.com is a comprehensive directory of Broadband Internet Provider. |
| www.thebroadbandguide.com |
|
| Internode - Broadband ADSL Internet Access |
| Internode - Broadband Internet Access and other Internet services. ... Internode Broadband ADSL is the broadband Internet solution you have been looking for ... |
| www.internode.on.net |
|
| CHOICE - Setting up broadband internet |
| Setting up broadband internet. How to get ADSL broadband, step by step Online 02/04. Contents. Setting up broadband internet · Availability and choice ... |
| www.choice.com.au |
|
| Wireless Broadband Internet Service Provider: High Speed Wireless ISP |
| Clearwire is a wireless broadband internet service provider (high speed wireless ISP) providing high speed wireless broadband internet access in Abilene TX, ... |
| www.clearwire.com |
|
| SurfCity Networks Broadband Internet |
| SurfCity Networks Broadband Verizon DSL High Speed Internet and Web Hosting. |
| www.surfcity.com |
|
| ISP - Wireless Broadband Internet Provider, iBurst, ADSL Broadband ... |
| Australian ISP providing business dialup, high-speed broadband, network access and datacentre services. |
| www.chilli.net.au |
|
| NTL - Broadband Internet - Digital TV - Phone - Cable ISP ... |
| Digital Television Network. |
| www.ntl.com |
|
|