Since the publication of my first topic to this day, I regularly receive various questions about the layout of mailings. In this article I will answer them from my point of view, which is based on my personal experience and statistical data. If you disagree with me in something, I will be happy to hear your point in the comments.

You are a spammer! You will burn in hell! Repent! Why do you need it?

Dear user, the mailing list is not always - there is SPAM. Russian Wikipedia gives the following definition of spam:

Spam (eng. Spam) - mass mailing of commercial, political and other advertising or other type of messages (information) to persons who did not express the desire to receive them.

And despite the fact that, according to statistics, about 80% of mail traffic is spam, I work according to the scheme of “fair” mailings. How does this happen:

Option number 1. Hello, you mail!

The picture is as follows. There is a customer - the owner of an online store, coupon network or any other service that is trying to either sell / regularly / inform the user about anything. What happens next? A html greeting letter is being prepared, which is sent to the email database with something like this:
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Hello, blah blah blah, we are such and such, such and such offers. If you are interested in this information, please follow the link and confirm your desire to regularly receive our mailing list.

When sending such a greeting letter, I recommend sending the user's email with GET to the link that leads to the “subscription”. What happens next? Or we display the user a page with the text:

Thank you for subscribing to our newsletter! Further emails will be sent to% email_end through_GET%

You can even send GET not the email itself, but its hash, in order to prevent subscriber manipulation by substitution of soap into the browser string.

But there is a preferred option. It lies in the fact that when clicking on a link, the user sees a form in which the "email subscriber" field is already filled, and we give the user the right to change the value of this field. We also provide a choice in the form of checkboxes, which is what the user subscribes to, be it: news of the service, receipt of new products, publication of new interesting articles and other things. After all, a person may be interested in one thing; there is no need for him to send everything that you consider necessary.

There is one more extremely important field - the mailing format. This is an HTML and text version (plain / text). This item is the answer to the question “HTML mailing must die! Stop sending this crap! ” Give the user the right to choose and everyone is happy.

Option number 2. Do you agree?

This option involves obtaining consent to the newsletter, as in the first case, but instead of invitation letters, you offer the user to subscribe at the time of registration on your website / service. In this case, there is one very important BUT. Never, you hear!? Never use the following inscription !!! "By clicking on the" Register "button you confirm your desire to receive regular mailings from us."

At this point the issue of spam has been exhausted.

Which editor to prepare the layout?

Without discovering America, I will call Notepad ++ . This is my preference. You can use any other convenient editor. I hasten to warn you that using wysiwyg-editors can “break” your layout when using font tags, for example. Although you can safely use dreamwever's visual editor without fear for your layout, using span tags instead of font. The use of formatting tags is described in the first topic . I can not vouch for other visual editors. Anyway, before sending any emails, test all popular clients.

How to impose% something%?

Read my previous topics, as well as the method of scientific testing.

What email clients should be guided by in preparing mailings?

MS Outlook 2003-2010, mail.ru, rabmler mail, Yandex mail, Gmail, Yahoo! Mail (Classic), Thunderbird 2.0-3.0, Hotmail, Windows Live Mail, Apple Mail 3-4, AOL Mail, Lotus Notes 8-8.5, the Bat!

Can you provide statistics on the use of email clients?

No, but I think the survey on Habré will not be superfluous. Let not the most objective.

How to conduct a layout test?

Some mass mailing services provide similar tools, but in life I have not seen a lot of these. Pardot has this feature (it provides screenshots of all popular email clients, but not interfaces), but since this service is intended for integrated marketing, it is not practical to purchase a package of services for the sake of layout testing. In runet similar services not met. In mailchimp, this toolkit is available, but as a paid option (I have not tried it myself yet). Also in the bourgeois google gives out quite a few links to similar services, but there are no free ones. If anyone has used, please comment in the comments. If there is no desire to spend money, then we simply send letters to our mailboxes and review the mailing in them with our own hands.

What is Crossmeiler?

Derived from the word Crossbrowser. In fact - the correct display of layout in email clients and web interfaces.

Where to get ready-made templates for mailings?

The mailchimp and campaignmonitor services provide such, but I’m not completely sure about their cross-leveling, because I use my own method for layout.

How do you even send letters? Something I can not send the letter created through outlook!

Outlook and other mail clients and web interfaces are not intended for this. Their goal is personal correspondence. For mass mailings there are many services on the network. Alternatively, you can send the newsletter from your server with a self-written solution, for example, to php. Desktop programs also exist, but I do not have affairs with them.

What is the best service for newsletters?

How many people, so many opinions. I can only bring my own.

Unisender.com

Quite a good domestic service, but I'm not sure that there is a possibility of separating subscribers into html and plain / text versions. I also do not like their interface.

Mailcube.ru

Also Russian service. Excellent minimalistic interface. Without extra frills and modern tools. Made a customer base, uploaded layout, sent a letter. See the statistics. Also not sure about the separation into html and plain / text versions.

Mailchimp.com aka Monkey

The market leader email marketing. Extremely friendly and easy-to-use interface, flexible tariff scheme, ease of operation. Everywhere tips and video tutorials. Everything is in English. There is a free tariff, which implies placing a monkey logo (in the footer) in each letter.

Campaignmonitor.com

It is also a well-known mailing service, with a pleasant and extremely user-friendly interface. It has long been on the market. Provides ready-made templates and cross-meshing tables.

How to attach pictures to the letter?

The picture can be attached directly to the letter, but it is implemented only in samopny solutions, as far as I know. All services offer an indication of the absolute url to the picture, which is located on any hosting. Mail services such hosting also provide.

How not to get spam?

First of all, do not send spam. And also always establish a link to the unsubscribe, do not use large images, do not send letters as a whole, and take into account the human factor. We must do everything possible so that at least people click on the “This is spam!” Button.

Do you accept layout orders?

Yes. I can also draw a newsletter. By the way, I am extremely touched by the ads on freelance, in which it appears, they say, it is necessary to impose a newsletter, and give references to my topics with the postscript “You can read how to type out here.”

How much is the layout?

There are no clear prices. It all depends on the complexity of the design layout.

Another question ...

Questions not included in this FAQ probably got answers in previous topics. If you missed anything, ask in the comments.