Ask Aunt May: HTML Emails?

Isn’t email message design just web page design, only less complicated? Why can’t I just have my webmaster pump out my HTML email using our site template?

Confused,
Spokane, Washington

A: Dear Confused:

You remind me of my sister, Edna. A few years ago Edna needed a wee brain operation. She’s a thrifty lass, my little sister and neurosurgeons are among the priciest of the bunch. So she decided to have her podiatrist deal with the lump in her head - heck he’d been pretty good at removing the bunions on her toes and a lump is a lump. After a three-hour surgery, Edna ended up with a toe attached to her left ear.

Your web designer is no doubt very talented, skilled and in general, a simply wonderful person. But your HTML emails and your web pages have about as much in common as bunions and brain tumours. Don’t believe me? Here are just a few of the differences:

1. Your web designer is worried about interactivity of your website and has all sorts of nifty programming tools available to improve it. Those tools don’t work in email clients, or worse can get your emails blocked altogether.
2. Your web designer is working hard to stay current with Web 2.0, the latest versions of IE, Firefox, & Netscape. Your email designer needs to make web 0.5 look like web 1.0 and is juggling Thunderbird, Netscape, Eudora, Outlook 97 through 2003, Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, and a few others. None of which display HTML in a way that is consistent with each other, let alone IE or Firefox.
3. The same CSS that makes your web designer’s life easy, makes your email designer’s life hell.
4. People will give you about 8 seconds on a web page. Your email is lucky if it gets 3.
5. Some ISPs simply won’t deliver your messages if the file size is too big - that means all those beautiful graphics might actually be a very bad thing.
6. There’s also a reasonably good chance that at least some of your readers won’t see the images in your HTML email. Which means your beautiful message could end up looking broken!

If that doesn’t convince you, just close your eyes and visualize poor Edna trying to put on her socks with one toe attached to her ear! Not much of a brand message is it? On the other hand, have your web designer give me a call. I’ve got a series of one-day seminars coming up - maybe even one in your neighbourhood!