Easy Emails

[davidmccready]

Dean

To write great business generating emails requires a clear head and a smothe flow of creativity.

If you write an email in MS Outlook, its easy.
The spell checker catches the stupid mistake.
You can add hyperlinks.
Bullet points and other improvements are easy.
Etc.
And, am I correct in thinking the whole thing converts to text automatically when required.

Alternatively.
You can do it in html.
Lots of code to check.
Plenty of ways to make mistakes.
Worst of all, instead of concentrating on great copy, much of the mental focus is now on html code.
And finally, am I correct in thinking you have to do two versions html & text.
Yuck

There must be an easy way.
List mail users have produced great looking material.

Please..... how is this done ?

Writing an MS Outlook type email and then automatically converting it would be an ideal solution at this time.

Thanks Again
With your help steady progress is being made and bit by bit everything is turning out really well.

David

[BGSWebDesign]

Hi David,

There must be an easy way.

There is an easy way.  

You write your email in Text Format ONLY,  you do NOT write it in HTML, I tried that myself and wasted hours of time, not only that, many email reader software (including Windows new LiveMail) display email messages in text only.

So, why would you want to waste your time writing an email in HTML format?

You sure like to look at things in detail, are you new to this?  Secondly, you seem to think there is 'an easy way' to do everything...  I can tell you right now - there is NO easy way (secret), you do the best you can with the tools available, there is no 'master secret' that everyone uses...  If you find a good tool you use it... that's it...

Good luck....

[mike2]

I totally agree with this one Brett!

HTML is meant for Web Pages, TEXT is meant for emails.

Write your emails in PLAIN TEXT only.  Then just be a bit creative with it and say what you need to say.

Also agreed that there is no "easy way" to do everything, even thought Listmail makes email marketing easy as it can.

[don1]

I have to add my 2 cents and agree totally with Brett and Mike.  I tried using "pretty" html emails in the past...and after 1000's of emails later, I found that short, informative, and depending on what your selling "from the heart" emails in "text only" format will give you the best return.  

People want value...don't try to sell...show value and they will buy or use your services.  Make your emails look and sound like you are writing them at that very moment or that you are sending valuable information that you have gathered.

Have fun!

~Don

[davidmccready]

You can do an email in MS Outlook. The reason for doing this at all is to get spelling etc correct. Most of the emails I get are not in text. So that is why I wanted to try it.

Having done it on MS Outlook the next part is to get it onto Listmail. To do this you save the email as html. Then open the html document and "view source". Even a short message now looks like a 3 page essay (I really dont know why).

However, in the process problems may have arisen. A good example is "!fname" becomes "!<sp.........(lots of rubbish).....>name". Which is no good.

So you have to delete the "rubbish" and everything looks ok again.

Copy and paste the now huge short message into Listmail and that appears to work as html.

Then you also have to copy the same short message into text as plain text.

It works.

I am new to this, but I still think there is a better way.

Also. How do you (is it even possible) get the hyperlinks into the text versions?

David

[BGSWebDesign]

Hi David,

I am new to this, but I still think there is a better way.

Good luck, go find your better way.... most likely you'll be out of business before you discover it!  I doubt you would last as long as some of us die hard marketers up here, but have all the fun you want trying  :lol:  and 'don't say we didn't tell you so'...

Also. How do you (is it even possible) get the hyperlinks into the text versions?

DW already answered this for you in another thread, you don't do anything, the email reader program converts standard links such as:
http://www.whateverdomain.com to their correct linkable text.

Ba-Bye...

[DW]

Hi David,

If you insist on sending HTML in spite of the advice, instead of using Outlook you might set up your HTML message in FrontPage.  Be sure to save as "HTML, Filtered" since advanced HTML is not allowed in email.  Next, of course, copy and paste the source of the generated file into the ListMail HTML section.  Make sure all your links and images are "absolute" and not "relative", ie <img src=http://example.com/images/example.gif> not <img src=/images/example.gif>

To avoid having to create a text copy of the message you can set up a message code of the type "Link to HTML".  This way, subscribers with text-only email clients will be sent a link they can click through to view the personalized HTML message with their web browser.

Regards

[davidmccready]

Dean + Other helpful contributors

Lets remember the question / simple issue.

If anyone wants to send one ordinary email the normal way, you would use  programs such as MS Outlook.
*Easy to use.
*Spelling checked.
*Hyperlink options.
*Choice of fonts and sizes.

Using Listmail is more complicated. Fair enough. Because it does more. Thats why anyone would buy Listmail.

The ideal sollution is to write one email including "!fname" and other simple additions that make it look good.

If you just write the whole thing in Listmail you do not have many of these features.

So you have to write messages on a program with the edit features, then copy and paste.

The real objectives are to make an email:
*Simple to write
*Look good
*Work... easy to send & receive

Do you think when Bill Gates was developing his software he wanted it to be easy or hard for an ordinary person to use?

Trying to untangle the mass of opinions:

QUESTIONS

1. What is the simplest method that produces the desired quality?

2. In the case of writing one html email, how is the link to html added.

Thanks everyone
David

[BGSWebDesign]

Hi David,

Do you think when Bill Gates was developing his software he wanted it to be easy or hard for an ordinary person to use?

Sorry, but I had to answer this one!

Of course he made it hard, probably not intentionally, BUT, it stays hard for over 20 years.  You see, I've been a programmer since 1987 when I graduated from college with a Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Science....  

I worked for many years as a Research Scientist (Software Engineer), all during that time all we heard was talk of HOW things would change, voice activated technology, blah, blah, blah...

We have seen NONE of that - it's my opinion this is directly related to the monopoly owned by a very large corporation by the name of Microsoft.  They have continued to buy up about every software programming firm in the market, go all the way back to Lotus 1-2-3 (the original spreadsheet software) and make it harder to use, bigger (using more disk space) and so on, and on and on and on...

NOW, do you really think that Microsoft is interested in making this easy for a common (everyday) person when a programmer can not even operate half of the software they produce which is also full of bugs most of the time and you have to PAY for an upgrade when the new version comes out - over and over again...

One look at this and you will see, the only way to solve it would be to NOT allow Monopolies, funny, isn't that part of our own democratic system?  Also funny, strange how Microsoft always eludes the largest litigators in the world when it gets challenged on it's Monopoly, if 97% if NOT a monopoly, I'd be curious WHAT IS A MONOPOLY?

So, there you have it... if you want to be involved in this market get used to incredible bugs, problems, and HARD work on your part to try to figure something out - it will NEVER BE 'Easy', that comes from nearly 20 years in this field - remember my first computer was an Atari 400 with a whopping 4Kbytes of memory!

Good luck - finding your 'Easy' button  :lol:

[davidmccready]

Bret

One mention of Bill Gates and the main issue gets lost.

Producing high quality emails with the least effort.

One reason why Bill Gates got very rich (appart from questionable business tactics) was that the basic product was good.

Apple, for example, have market share by making something that is in many respects better and easier to use.

The point is making this technology user friendly.

In this case copywriting and html skills are two very different subjects.

FACT It is easier to do great copywriting and email presentation if your brain is not distracted by having to remember lots of code. Because you are using different parts of your brain, you get better results by focusing on one or other. Not both at once.

Now some Listmail users have developed or discovered better solutions to this that others.

My queston on this posting has and always will be how to get the best possible results with the least code writing hassle.

Still
This is a stimulating discussion

David

[BGSWebDesign]

Hi David,

was that the basic product was good.

That is very questionable

I could go on and on:

The original MS-DOS was not much different (ask anyone) than PC-DOS, they just got lucky and IBM agreed to pay them a royalty for every copy instead of paying them a one-time fee.  Microsofts SQL Server is NOT better than any other SQL on the market, in fact I prefer MySQL myself, and I'm a programmer with a degree concentration in database design.

Windows is a copy of Apple Mac, I wouldn't say it's better, look at how much easier it is to do things on Mac versus Windows machine - any graphics or audio, or video person will tell you that.

Then there is the list of how they bought up other companies products and made them worse:
They bought Lotus 1-2-3 and made the product worse (harder to work with and bulkier), they bought FoxPro and made the product worse (injected bugs, and were not able to fix them quickly), there are many others in this list... but I won't bore you with details - I'm sure by now you get the picture - BUT maybe not...

You see, most people (including you) have been 'SNOWED' by Microsoft Marketing to believe that their product(s) are 'better', when they are  not... ask any technical person (programmer, etc) and they will tell you every time Microsoft products are NOT better.  The only thing they do good is 'Marketing' - if you buy into that, that's your prerogative - and you know what - with that you ALSO BUY INTO the fact that you should be able to do something 'easy' - like make HTML Email...

You bought into it - now you believe things should be 'easy', if Microsoft was good at what they did, and their products were good, then 20 years of development would not produce an environement that was JUST AS HARD TO WORK IN now would it?  If you want something 'easy' then consider that you should stop being 'snowed' by Microsoft marketing and look to other solutions.

There is no 'easy button' - part of the reason is that Microsoft continues to produce inferior products, they hold a monopoly on the market and they continue to snow people with their marketing tactics...

Now some Listmail users have developed or discovered better solutions to this that others.

My queston on this posting has and always will be how to get the best possible results with the least code writing hassle.

This is also where you are wrong, I doubt that there are any Listmail users that have gotten better at it than others, they just work harder... if there were any Listmail users who were better why haven't they posted their solutions here?  Many of them read these forum posts...

As I said before there is no 'easy way' right now, and there may not be for another 20 years, until other people stop getting 'snowed' by Microsoft and look for real solutions, then there might be an opportunity for change, right now there is very little...

Would you like your electric company, or gas company, telephone, or cable company to have a monopoly on the services they sell you - isn't that why the goverment split up AT&T?  Think how much they would charge you, and how poor the service would be, now think again about how you think Microsoft has products that are 'good'....  :roll: