As the online world changed in the nineties from information to business and intense competition, advertisers have embraced new technologies and there is already a need to send attractive newsletters and marketing messages. You only have a few seconds to capture attention, and the right image will take faster than the right copy, as they say, "a picture can cost a thousand words". Just ask your clients if they can use white paper, instead of letterhead, to send an offline message to beneficiaries and customers.
Today, most all email clients can render (i.e., display) HTML emails efficiently. Notable exceptions are older versions of Lotus Notes and earlier versions of AOL 6.0. So although a few years ago the answer to the question was very difficult, today it comes because of the message, the choice of subscribers and the different messages. Research shows that about 95 percent of commercial messages sent today are sent as Multi-Part MIME.
Many parts of MIME are an old protocol that allows you to send both text and HTML version of email via a single package, such as a sandwich. The recipient's email program then displays the HTML version, if it can read that, or the text version, if it can.
MIME stands for Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions and is an Internet standard for email formats. Almost all personalized Internet emails and most of the default emails are sent in SMTP MIME format. SMTP stands for Simple Mail Transfer Protocol and if nothing else, you will read a few acronyms if you stick. Internet email is so closely associated with SMTP and MIME standards that it is sometimes referred to as SMTP / MIME email.
Compatriots, although no one can really agree on numbers and statistics, we all agree on this: HTML Email Does Not Work Well for Millions of Recipients.
HTML email pops up in various email inboxes. This is not because of your creative skills or lack of HTML knowledge - it's because your email client and your recipient are watching your email when they constantly break your message.
I feel like this is worth explaining, as I know a lot of people are very scared when we talk about clients and servers, but they won't let you. The email client (some "big picture" people also call Mail User Agent) is nothing but a computer program used to read and send email, such as Outlook, Lotus Notes, Thunderbird, etc. An email server (also called a Mail Transfer Agent or MTA, or an email exchange server) is a computer program that transmits email messages from one computer to another. Most of the time, as no one has time to read all the abbreviations and names coined by those “big picture” people, we tend to know the mail server as the whole contraption (cables and all) running the program.
Depending on the email system, your HTML images may be blocked so that recipients can see a blank white box and / or your live hotlinks may not work properly. AOL 9.0, Outlook 2003, and Gmail are notorious for blocking and / or violating HTML, “for security reasons”.
Another major culprit in not allowing HTML to pass is Mel, a young man who works in the IT business department. Most companies have IT departments that can wait for the day when all attachments and all HTML emails will be completed. That is because in their world, anything that is not pure text is spam, worms, spyware, adware, the evil ware that makes the mailboxes grow and the users are full. As a result, most of those cubicle citizens - end users - who have to sign a 100-page policy before they can get busy in those corporate e-memos, cannot view and / or send HTML messages, even if the feature is turned on.
For fun, here is the description of Lotus Notes created by one of those “big picture” managers: “Lotus Notes is a commercial application and group software package that also provides application developers a place to quickly create a different platform client / server applications”. Still with me? Do not be afraid. For the purposes of this article, Lotus Notes is an email client. Okay?
If you work for a company that uses Lotus Notes as an email program, don't even think about sending newsletters without a text form. Aside from the fact that as a general rule, I always recommend advertisers to use a professional email marketing service based on professional permission, in the case of Lotus Notes you should do.
If you interact with the B2B market, especially large professional firms, major law firms, many Global 2000 companies, HTML email compatibility will be a thorn in your side, as many of these companies use Lotus Notes.
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