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• By Stephane LEE
• on May 15th, 2006

How to create your HTML newsletter

Recently we sent two HTML information letters and I would like to share our feedback with you.
If you need to send out information to your subscribers, you have to ask yourself the following first:  Why a Newsletter?
Today, many means of information are available to you:  blog, RSS data streams, emailing. Which one to choose?  Well it depends

For our concern, we have a blog containing a RSS data stream in order to subscribe to our articles. It’s great but…a blog is a public matter by definition and we wanted to reserve access to sensible information (such as access codes to our beta version) to people we had invited or who had volunteered.
In this case, only a Newsletter – meaning a targeted infomational email to people desiring to receive it- could do.
Once the choice has been made, there remains the question of the how. First concern, the form of what would be sent: plain text mode; HTML format, PDF?
Finally we went for an HTML Newsletter because we wanted to introduce some graphic elements in the letter such as our logo or information blocs in order to prepare our subscribers to what they might find on our presite or application. Since we also wanted to point out some Web pages in the core message, HTML format naturally came to mind so that we could include the links in the mail.
If this choice seems logical its realisation however was way more complicated than expected!

Since HTML Newsletter generally means dealing with incompatibilies well known by Web professionals.
Everybody knows (or not) that if HTML format is standard, it is far from being the case for its many implementations and that each browser has its own specificities (Internet Explorer especially). If managing for a Web application to work propely on every browser is a costly challenge…it is the same for an HTML Newsletter.
What a surprise when I realized our HTML Newsletter was appearing totally differently on each customer’s mail!
Here are some explanations:  mail customers usually use ‘HTML engines’ provided by big browers (Gecko for Firefow, Webkit for Safari, etc.) We could be led to think that if our HTML page included in the Newsletter appears just fine on IE, Firefox and Safari, it should also be readable on most of email customers (Outlook, Thunderbird, etc.) using these engines.
It is partly true but…some mail customers are still using older generations which are not compatible with some styles: ‘CSS’ for example. Furthermore, more and more netsurfers are using Web customers to access their mail boxes (cf Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, etc.).
We would think if the subscriber uses a browser to look at his mail and that the HTML included in the Newsletter appears just fine on this browser, everything looks good…that is not counting on overzealous mailbox providers who suppress some HTML format to replace them by their own or who simply refuse any HTML format!!!
After many trials and errors you start pulling your hair –even if you do not have any - and you tell yourself you did not plan of spending hours on the matter. Time has come for strategic withdrawal!
Fortunately there is a workaround. It consists of what specialists would call a ‘multipart’ mail, meaning a mail in two parts:  one part containing plain text, the other containing the HTML page. Depending on what the mail customer of the addressee will accept, the mail will show up one way or the other with at least the plain text if the HTML is rejected.

Therefore it is important to verify that your Newsletter mailing administrator manages this double mailing.

Within the plain text you may place a link to the HTML page, that is if you hosted it on a Web server. Another option would be to insert an image of the HTML page. In order to do so you just need to turn your HTML page into a Gif, Png or Jpg document. In case your HTML is bigger than a standard screen, tools such as Paparazzi on Mac may help to create the image from a simple screen capture. In this particular ocurence, you would not be able to click on different HTML links since it would not be ‘clickable’ on the sent picture.

Concerning links within a Newsletter, be aware we are conditioned to act mecanically while reading an email, and we like to click on the first link we encounter without even reading the rest of the message. I made the mistake of placing important links at the bottom of the letter, therefore most people did not even see them . Be smart, don’t do the same and think about prioritizing your links. Which one should your subscribers click on first?

Allright, now that you have your HTML page and have chosen your gradation, you need to send it out to everybody. What Newsletter management tool are you going to choose?

I quickly looked around at what was available on the market: Cabestan, Cheetah, Campaigner, Emailvision, Dolist. Then, I looked at and tested some Open Source solutions such as Wanewsletter. Finally I opted for a commercial but free solution (so far) offered by Australians from Zookoda.

Why Zookoda? Many reasons such as:

• because it is a start up and that we understand each other among start ups ,


• because their product allows you to create Newsletter with manual content as much as automatized content (from blog’s RSS threads),


• because features are numerous and the tracking is efficient,


• because the interface is user friendly and pleasant.

In the end, what did I retain from this episode of the FeedBack 2.0 adventure?

1. Do not forget that creating an HTML letter is time consuming, is it worth it?


2. Do not forget about bypassing procedures so that most of the subscribers may read the HTML page,


3. Place the most important links at the top of the message,


4. Do not forget to include an unsubscribing link since it is legally required.

There, I hope this experience will be useful and I look forward to reading your comments and feedback…

1. On Jun 26th, 2006 at 18:35 by Xavier

J’acquièsce pour avoir testé Zookoda L’essayer c’est l’adopter…

2. On Dec 08th, 2006 at 13:26 by

Merci 1000 fois pour ce partage d’expérience ! Je me pose exactement la (les) même question dans un contexte professionnel. D’ailleurs votre solution Feedback20 pourrait nous intéresser.  A suivre.

3. On Dec 31st, 2006 at 0:21 by Al West

Bonsoir,
Je suis ok pour Zookoda, le design me plaît mais je n’arrive pas à créer un broadcast ou un de leur webmaster doit vérifier que je ne suis pas en train de spammer. C’est dommage, j’ai envoyer plusieurs mails pour savoir comment faire et cela fait 3 semaines que rien n’avancent.
Quelqu’un sait il comment faire ?
peut être recréer un compte…
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