If you publish an ezine like I do, but you create it in HTML so you can make it look pretty with different colors and graphics, there’s a good chance that many of your subscribers aren’t receiving it.
That’s because HTML, which is often used by spammers, triggers spam filters. The problem is particularly troublesome if journalists, who subscribe to your ezine, suddenly stop receiving it.
Publicity Hound Michelle Nichols of Houston, Texas, a sales expert and columnist for Business Week Online, wrote to thank me about the tip to change her ezine from HTML to text only.
“I took your advice, studied a few newsletters that are in plain text, sent mine out in plain text this week, opened with an apology/explanation, asked that they add me to their address book/white list right now, AND heard from more people after this mailing than the last 5 mailings put together.”
She even heard from someone who first heard about her two years ago, lost touch, and wanted to hire her for a speaking engagement.
HTML newsletters create other problems:
–Most international readers don’t want HTML email because they have to be on line to read it, and most other countries don’t have cheap and fast Internet access like the U.S. does.
–Internet marketing guru Corey Rudl says as much as 40 percent of HTML doesn’t get to the intended recipient looking the way you intended it to look.
–If you write to a corporate audience, many corporations flat out forbid HTML emails from entering their systems.
That’s why my ezine, “The Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week,” is text-only and will remain that way.
If you market on the Internet, you can learn tips like these and many more by becoming a member of the Internet Association of Information Marketers.
I am. And I’m picking up strategies and techniques every day to help me create electronic products, do email marketing, and learn about automation techniques, search engine optimization, web design and off-line marketing. Learn more about the association.