Effective Html Email Marketing Campaigns And Lotus Notes Issues
As the online world changes in the nineties from information to marketing and greater competition, retailers are embracing new technologies and the need to send attractive newsletters and advertising messages. You have a few seconds to draw attention, and the right image will capture faster than the right copy, as they say, "a picture can cost a thousand words". Just ask your clients if they will use clear white paper, rather than letterhead, to send offline message to prospects and customers.
Today, most email clients can offer (i.e., display) HTML emails efficiently. Notable releases are the older versions of Lotus Notes and the previous pre AOL pre 6.0. So while a few years ago the answer to the question was complicated, today it goes down to the purpose of messaging, liking subscribers and sending multiple messages. Research shows that about 95 percent of commercial messages sent today are sent as a Multi-Part MIME.
Multi-part MIME is an old protocol that allows you to send both text and HTML versions of email in a single package, similar to a sandwich. The recipient's e-mail program then displays the HTML version, if it can read that, or the text version, if not.
MIME stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions and is an Internet standard for email formats. Almost all of the people’s written Internet email and the largest number of default email are transmitted in the SMTP MIME format. SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and if not, you will learn some acronyms if you stick. Internet email is strongly associated with SMTP and MIME standards and is sometimes referred to as SMTP / MIME email.
Folks, even though no one can really agree on numbers and statistics, we all agree on this: HTML Email Does Not Work Properly Millions of Recipients.
HTML emails are divided into different email inboxes. This is not because of your creative skills or HTML ignorance - it's because your email client and recipient view your email as often violating your message.
I feel like this should be explained, as I know a lot of people are scared when we talk about customers and servers, but they won’t accept it. An email client (some “big picture” people call Mail User Agent) is nothing but a computer program used to read and send email, such as Outlook, Lotus Notes, Thunderbird, etc. A mail server (also called a Mail Transfer Agent or MTA, or a mail exchange server) is a computer program that transmits electronic messages from one computer to another. Most of the time, because no one has time to read all the names and names of those “big” people, we are used to knowing the mail server as everything (cables and everything) running the program.
Depending on the email program, your HTML images may be blocked so that recipients can see an empty white box and / or your hotlinks may not work properly. AOL 9.0, Outlook 2003, and Gmail are best known for blocking and / or violating HTML, "for security reasons".
Another major offender to not allow HTML to pass is Mel, a young man who works in the IT department of corporation. Most companies have IT departments that can wait for the day when all attachments and all HTML emails are completed. That's because in their world, anything other than pure spam, virii, worms, trojans, spyware, adware, the evil ware that makes mailboxes grow and users roar. As a result, most of those cubicle people - end users - have to sign a 100-page policy before they can get busy in those corporate e-memos, unable to view and / or send HTML messages, even if the feature is turned off at server level, or on their computers.
All else aside, there is no greater criminal here on Earth than Lotus Notes. Lotus Notes is best known for refusing to treat the Multi-Part MIME in the same way as the rest of the developed world.
For your pleasure, here is a description of Lotus notes created by one of those "big picture" managers: "Lotus Notes is a commercial workflow and team software package and gives app developers an environment to quickly build cross-platform client / server applications." Don't be afraid. For the purposes of this article, Lotus Notes is an email client.
If you work for a company that uses Lotus Notes as an email program, you might even consider sending letters without a text format. Aside from the fact that as a general rule, I always recommend to advertisers the use of an email service-based marketing license, in the case of Lotus Notes you should do so.
If you connect with the B2B market, especially large technology services firms, large law firms, many Global 2000 companies, HTML email compatibility will be a thorn in your side, as many of these companies use Lotus Notes.
Problems include:
- Older versions of Lotus Notes (less than R5) convert HTML emails into Lotus Notes Rich Rich format. Versions of Lotus Notes under R5 also do not recognize Multi-Part MIME messages (HTML and text combined with a single email).
- Some companies may be using the latest Lotus Notes client models, i.e., R6, but they are using an older version of the Lotus Notes / Domino server such as 4.6. In this case, the recipient's email client will also render the HTML message incorrectly.
Therefore in order for the recipient to view a well-provided HTML email, the company must use Lotus Notes clients with a server of R5 and above.
Here are some quick tips to take if you have an important Lotus Notes subscriber base:
1. Add a link at the top of HTML emails called “View Web Version” or similar. The link sends recipients to the web hosted HTML version of the email (either on the email technology provider's server or the sender server).
2. Re-enter the "Update Preferences" link and submit a website update form that enables recipients to select Text instead of HTML.
3. Create complete text types for those who prefer not to receive HTML or who cannot view HTML.
4. In the entry forms, enter the Text version option and filter (which means, "If you are using Lotus Notes versions below R5, select text").
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