Slightly OT: Best way to do/send HTML newsletter?
Hello All, I have a question for you all that maybe someone can point me in the right direction: I need to send out a HTML newsletter (embedded in the message) and I need to know the best way to do this. I'm not sure where I should start, but I was hoping someone on this list may have experience or information to point me somewhere. Any help is appreciated. Thanks. -- Greg Macek | Senior IT Manager Marketing Resources, Inc. it-guy@mrichi.com | http://www.mrichi.com
* Greg Macek
Hello All,
I have a question for you all that maybe someone can point me in the right direction: I need to send out a HTML newsletter (embedded in the message) and I need to know the best way to do this. I'm not sure where I should start, but I was hoping someone on this list may have experience or information to point me somewhere. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
Make sure you're recipients know beforehand that you are sending it. The last thing you want is to be sending spam. Apart from that, mimetools is probably what you need. (just google for it) Kind regards, -- Gerhard den Hollander Phone :+31-10.280.1515 ICT manager Direct:+31-10.280.1539 Jason Geosystems BV Fax :+31-10.280.1511 gdenhollander@jasongeo.com POBox 1573 visit us at http://www.jasongeo.com 3000 BN Rotterdam JASON.......#1 in Reservoir Characterization The Netherlands This e-mail and any attachment is/are intended solely for the named addressee(s) and may contain information that is confidential and privileged.
On 21 Jul 2003 13:14:30 -0500
Greg Macek
Hello All,
I have a question for you all that maybe someone can point me in the right direction: I need to send out a HTML newsletter (embedded in the message) and I need to know the best way to do this. I'm not sure where I should start, but I was hoping someone on this list may have experience or information to point me somewhere. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
If you use perl it's pretty easy. You probably want to send a text mail with embedded html. If you just want to send straight html, let me know, I'll send you a different script. You can also google for some scripts yourself. Search for "perl html email ". #!/usr/bin/perl use Mail::Sendmail; use strict; my ($boundary,$html_email,$text_email,%email); $boundary = 'allyourbasearebelongtous' . time; my @list= qw(zentara@zentara.net foo@bar.com baz@boo.net); #start loop foreach my $to (@list) { $html_email = qq(<html> <head><title>Email</title></head> <body> Hello world! </body> </html> ); $text_email = qq(Hello world!\n); %email = ( To => "$to",
From => 'zentara@zentara', Subject => 'Hello world', 'MIME-Version' => 1.0, 'Content-type' => "multipart/alternative; boundary=$boundary", Message => qq(--$boundary Content-type: text/plain; charset=UNKNOWN-8BIT
$text_email --$boundary Content-type: text/html; charset=iso-8859-1 $html_email --$boundary-- ) ); sendmail(%email); } #end of loop __END__ -- I'm not a human, but I play one on earth.
html newsletters. How I hate them! and how much I despise the organisations who send them in zillions of bytes - when there is a very simple alternativewhich shows real respect for the user - just e-mail a link to a web page. Some might argue that the recipients will not follow the link, so you are better off sending the whole html newsletter. However, when as a recipient, I think that I have been sent zillions of bytes in order to make sure that I see the newsletter, rather than allow me the choice to follow the link, it does not endear the sender to me and I block him and his whole domain. rgds Vince Littler On Monday 21 July 2003 7:14 pm, Greg Macek wrote:
Hello All,
I have a question for you all that maybe someone can point me in the right direction: I need to send out a HTML newsletter (embedded in the message) and I need to know the best way to do this. I'm not sure where I should start, but I was hoping someone on this list may have experience or information to point me somewhere. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
-- Greg Macek | Senior IT Manager Marketing Resources, Inc.
it-guy@mrichi.com | http://www.mrichi.com
Vince Littler wrote:
html newsletters. How I hate them! and how much I despise the organisations who send them in zillions of bytes - when there is a very simple alternativewhich shows real respect for the user - just e-mail a link to a web page.
I do agree with you. I do genuinely loathe receiving HTML mail, especially when there's no text/plain alternative part (which my mailer, exmh, will present as default). For a dial-up user they are often a real pain, especially when external references are coded into the HTML - which can cause a mailer to lock up for an irritating few seconds. I used to have a procmail rule which would send an automated response to inform the sender that their mail had been auto-discarded, then deliver their mail to /dev/null. I'm a bit more cautious these days, must be impending middle age.
On Tuesday 22 July 2003 19:16, Vince Littler wrote:
html newsletters. How I hate them! and how much I despise the organisations who send them in zillions of bytes - when there is a very simple alternativewhich shows real respect for the user - just e-mail a link to a web page.
Some might argue that the recipients will not follow the link, so you are better off sending the whole html newsletter. However, when as a recipient, I think that I have been sent zillions of bytes in order to make sure that I see the newsletter, rather than allow me the choice to follow the link, it does not endear the sender to me and I block him and his whole domain.
I'm a (paid up) subscriber to a site which sends out a monthly newsletter. Nothing wrong in that since I've agreed to receive it. Still, for the first few months I got a mail which said: "Oh dear, your e-mail program doesn't support HTML e-mails. It's time to upgrade to Outlook <whatever-version>" As you can imagine I was mighty peeved. Pleased to say, after five or so /strongly worded/ mails to the site's postmaster they now send out text only newsletters. Dylan -- Sweet moderation Heart of this nation Desert us not We are between the wars - Billy Bragg
On Tue, 2003-07-22 at 20:16, Vince Littler wrote:
html newsletters. How I hate them!
A lot of people - what I like to call the 'gee wiz' crowd - genuinely like html mail. receiving mail with animated gifs and colourful backgrounds and the whole shebang. As long as the list is opt-in, and as long as you can select whether to receive HTML or regular mail, I don't have a problem with it. Those features appeal to the AOL/windows crowd
I consider myself part of the "gee wiz" crowd but could hardly be associated with AOL or Windows. Just because someone opts to receive (and doesn't have a problem with) HTML doesn't mean they're a neophyte, newbie, nerd, etc. I've been using computers for a dozen years (programming, networking, etc.) and have been on the 'net nearly that amount of time. Using plain text or HTML is simply a matter of personal choice; accepting/receiving/sending plain text does not make you any more of a computer scientist than HTML makes you an "AOLer". Zach On Tue, 2003-07-22 at 14:26, Anders Johansson wrote:
On Tue, 2003-07-22 at 20:16, Vince Littler wrote:
html newsletters. How I hate them!
A lot of people - what I like to call the 'gee wiz' crowd - genuinely like html mail. receiving mail with animated gifs and colourful backgrounds and the whole shebang.
As long as the list is opt-in, and as long as you can select whether to receive HTML or regular mail, I don't have a problem with it. Those features appeal to the AOL/windows crowd
On Tue, 2003-07-22 at 22:26, Zach Smith wrote:
I consider myself part of the "gee wiz" crowd but could hardly be associated with AOL or Windows. Just because someone opts to receive (and doesn't have a problem with) HTML doesn't mean they're a neophyte, newbie, nerd, etc. I've been using computers for a dozen years (programming, networking, etc.) and have been on the 'net nearly that amount of time. Using plain text or HTML is simply a matter of personal choice; accepting/receiving/sending plain text does not make you any more of a computer scientist than HTML makes you an "AOLer".
Sure, whatever suits your fancy. My point was just that as long as it's opt-in and you can choose whether you want HTML or plain email, there's no reason to complain about it
Vince --
...and then Vince Littler said...
%
% html newsletters. How I hate them! and how much I despise the organisations
I certainly agree there!
...
% alternativewhich shows real respect for the user - just e-mail a link to a
% web page.
Well, there's a problem there; when I get something by email then I want
to be able to read it in email instead of having to go off and read it on
a web page; if I were going to do that then I wouldn't need a newsletter
in the first place, and more than that I wouldn't have to download the
entire web onto my hard drive to read my newsletter mail when I'm not on
the 'net.
No, *real* respect for the user is giving the user a choice of whether to
receive HTML or text email and then sending the newsletter as expected.
To all who have replied: Thanks to all for your opinions and thoughts. It's not my choice to send this newsletter. We're doing it for the client who thinks HTML email is prettier and more eye-catching. I'll definitely be pushing for the plain-text alternative for those people who may have mail clients that prefer the text alternative. Thankfully I've also talked to the creative team designing the email and recommended against any large graphics, etc. We'll see how far that gets things.. :) I generally don't prefer the HTML version of newsletters, but it doesn't make me puke. :) I know and have seen there are strong opinions on the matter. Yes, this newsletter is an opt-in and they have all received HTML email before, so at least it won't be surprise for them in their Inbox. On Wed, 2003-07-23 at 07:18, David T-G wrote:
Vince --
...and then Vince Littler said... % % html newsletters. How I hate them! and how much I despise the organisations
I certainly agree there!
... % alternativewhich shows real respect for the user - just e-mail a link to a % web page.
Well, there's a problem there; when I get something by email then I want to be able to read it in email instead of having to go off and read it on a web page; if I were going to do that then I wouldn't need a newsletter in the first place, and more than that I wouldn't have to download the entire web onto my hard drive to read my newsletter mail when I'm not on the 'net.
No, *real* respect for the user is giving the user a choice of whether to receive HTML or text email and then sending the newsletter as expected.
:-D -- Greg Macek | Senior IT Manager Marketing Resources, Inc.
it-guy@mrichi.com | http://www.mrichi.com
There i a program on my SuSE 8.2 DVD called bulk_mailer. It reads like it is worth looking at, but I don't do bulk mailings so who knows how good it is. There are a couple of other programs on the DVD but they sound more like Majordomo which is probably not what you want, then again maybe Majordomo could do what you want. On Monday 21 July 2003 01:14 pm, Greg Macek wrote:
Hello All,
I have a question for you all that maybe someone can point me in the right direction: I need to send out a HTML newsletter (embedded in the message) and I need to know the best way to do this. I'm not sure where I should start, but I was hoping someone on this list may have experience or information to point me somewhere. Any help is appreciated. Thanks.
-- Greg Macek | Senior IT Manager Marketing Resources, Inc.
it-guy@mrichi.com | http://www.mrichi.com
participants (10)
-
Anders Johansson -
David T-G -
Dylan -
Gerhard den Hollander -
Greg Macek -
James Gibbon -
Paul Benjamin -
Vince Littler -
Zach Smith -
zentara