So how does these look on Outlook 2000 - 2007? Love the initiative but it's impossible to use a template that doesn't work with Outlook.
Show HN: Responsive Email Templates
71–80 of 96 posts
Re: Show HN: Responsive Email Templates
#72Am I the only one who is far less likely to read an HTML email? If I see that I need to click to allow external images for my email to load, I'm probably just going to delete it. It's amazing to me that HTML email can be effective for marketing. If you send me a paragraph of text, I'm going to read it on my mobile. If you send me an HTML email, I'm going to archive it right away on my mobile. If you send me too many…
I prefer HTML emails in many cases. However, most aren't responsive and for the longest time Gmail for Android hasn't supported pinch-to-zoom (I think it does in 4.2).
Doesn't seem to in 4.2 either...
Re: Show HN: Responsive Email Templates
#73Am I the only one who is far less likely to read an HTML email? If I see that I need to click to allow external images for my email to load, I'm probably just going to delete it. It's amazing to me that HTML email can be effective for marketing. If you send me a paragraph of text, I'm going to read it on my mobile. If you send me an HTML email, I'm going to archive it right away on my mobile. If you send me too many…
Not all HTML emails are image heavy monstrosities. There is a lot you can do with HTML/CSS that makes the message easier to consume and more impactual without using a single image. I feel like HTML email design lags about 5-10 years behind website design. Some of that is the limited feature set, but I think more of it is the lack of design attention its given. It seems like most of it gets generated by a marketing de…
And why is it generated by the marketing department's crappy software and not the engineering department? Because no-one in the engineering department wants to program like it's 1999!
Re: Show HN: Responsive Email Templates
#74I just don't see the point in responsive emails at the moment, all of our smart phones have the technology to support big beautiful newsletters that you can get on desktop/web email clients. If I receive a 600px wide email on my iPhone I can zoom and pan around it. I feel the same way about websites, I don't want my mobile browser to redirect me to a crippled mobile website with half the content. Especially when I ha…
It's easier to just scroll rather than pan and zoom.
Re: Show HN: Responsive Email Templates
#75If you are sending emails to business clients support for Outlook 2000-2003 & Outlook 2007 is still essential. I'm afraid you need to code them like it's 1999. MailChimp have a guide on how to do it right: http://mailchimp.com/resources/guides/email-jitsu/ Fortunately a is (and always has been) responsive. For non-business clients (who would be unlikely to use Outlook at all) these look great.
Outlook is the IE6 of the email design world.
Re: Show HN: Responsive Email Templates
#76I am new to having HTML email sent. What do folks do with the large (large in this case anyway) stylesheet, that actually works with actual email clients? Link it with a tag? Plop it all into a tag? (where?) Something else? What are current best practices for sending html email that needs a non-trivial stylesheet like this? Googling around, i'm still left not sure; many pages I find make recommendations that would ma…
Here are some resources I have found useful regarding email newsletters. Some of these seem to have some nice advice about how to test, how to aid user interaction too: - http://www.htmlemailgallery.com/ - http://litmus.com/blog/ - http://blog.mailchimp.com/ - http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/tips-resources - http://www.campaignmonitor.com/css/ - http://www.emailology.org/ - http://www.emailonacid.com/blog - http:…
> Basically, avoid floats, use tables, use inline styles.
Yeah, that's what I was finding too -- and that advice is pretty much incompatible with the "responsive email templates" offered in the OP, no? That's what I'm wondering about.
Re: Show HN: Responsive Email Templates
#77I am new to having HTML email sent. What do folks do with the large (large in this case anyway) stylesheet, that actually works with actual email clients? Link it with a tag? Plop it all into a tag? (where?) Something else? What are current best practices for sending html email that needs a non-trivial stylesheet like this? Googling around, i'm still left not sure; many pages I find make recommendations that would ma…
I work with HTML emails all day long and it's awful. The short answer is this: remember, it's an email, not a full blown website. You should not have as much CSS as you're describing in your emails to begin with. The more CSS the more chances there are for it to break. Images and tables are the way to go and you'd be surprised at how creative you can get under those constraints and how beautiful the result can be. Mo…
So, as someone who works with HTML emails all day long, do you have an evaluation of the "responsive email templates" in the OP?
They seem to conflict with much of your advice to me. That's what I'm wondering about.
Re: Show HN: Responsive Email Templates
#78If you are sending emails to business clients support for Outlook 2000-2003 & Outlook 2007 is still essential. I'm afraid you need to code them like it's 1999. MailChimp have a guide on how to do it right: http://mailchimp.com/resources/guides/email-jitsu/ Fortunately a is (and always has been) responsive. For non-business clients (who would be unlikely to use Outlook at all) these look great.
Outlook is the IE6 of the email design world.
I'd actually say it's more like the IE5 for Mac of the email world.
Re: Show HN: Responsive Email Templates
#79Am I the only one who is far less likely to read an HTML email? If I see that I need to click to allow external images for my email to load, I'm probably just going to delete it. It's amazing to me that HTML email can be effective for marketing. If you send me a paragraph of text, I'm going to read it on my mobile. If you send me an HTML email, I'm going to archive it right away on my mobile. If you send me too many…
I did some A/B testing on this a few years ago and found that HTML email had a better response rate for me. My methodology wasn't perfect, but I shared the results on my blog anyway: http://www.onlineaspect.com/2008/01/25/the-value-of-split-te...
The DIY guys say text wins.
http://diythemes.com/thesis/html-or-text-emails/
Personally I prefer short text ones.
Re: Show HN: Responsive Email Templates
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not all HTML emails are image heavy monstrosities. There is a lot you can do with HTML/CSS that makes the message easier to consume and more impactual without using a single image. I feel like HTML email design lags about 5-10 years behind website design. Some of that is the limited feature set, but I think more of it is the lack of design attention its given. It seems like most of it gets generated by a marketing de…
I disagree with your argument that email lags behind web design due to pack of effort. Have you ever tried to code a HTML email like you would code a website and looked at the result in email clients? Do this once and you'll see what I mean. Email clients are definitely to blame.
Actually I agree with this, perhaps we're just debating cause and effect. Developers in my experience do hate putting together html email due to the wonky client constraints and as a result often say to marketing "its a mess, I don't want to touch it, find a e-mail making program / service to do it".
But is that the cause or the effect?
Rather, are email clients still a mess because developers don't have much interest in topic? Even gmail has strange html/css rules, if google pulled that with chrome there would be pages of developer outrage here on HN, almost no one seems to care about gmail's html rendering, or enforcing a spec/compliance for email clients, developers are apathetic about it.
What I'm saying is, developers don't like working with html email because its a mess, but its a mess because the development community as a collective doesn't seem to care about it, at least not enough that there is a concerted effort to fix it.