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April 3, 2008 6:27 AM Subscribe
One of our clients has asked us to email our product info to all their staff. Some only receive in plain text and some receive html. How do we do this nicely?
One of our products (energy efficiency solutions) is good for both commercial and residential applications. A commercial client has requested that we send all their employees an email brochure detailing the benefits of the residential application. How do we do this so that it can be viewed by both plain text and html clients, ideally without having to click on an attachment? I'm assuming mostly Outlook or Outlook express.
The brochure is in PDF format and was created in MS publisher. I can obviously convert it to jpg or any other format if necessary.
We don't usually email brochures and when we do it is usually as an attachment so I really need some help here.
One of our products (energy efficiency solutions) is good for both commercial and residential applications. A commercial client has requested that we send all their employees an email brochure detailing the benefits of the residential application. How do we do this so that it can be viewed by both plain text and html clients, ideally without having to click on an attachment? I'm assuming mostly Outlook or Outlook express.
The brochure is in PDF format and was created in MS publisher. I can obviously convert it to jpg or any other format if necessary.
We don't usually email brochures and when we do it is usually as an attachment so I really need some help here.
Why avoid sending the attachment? Asking them to open an attachment doesn't seem like an incovenience. It seems to be the better approach. That way the recipients have something easily saved for future reference or output.
Additionally, sending it as an html email may run afoul of spam filters. Doubly so, since you are, in effect, carpet-mailing all the addresses in an entire company.
Either send the PDF or so the email as plain text.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:14 AM on April 3, 2008
Additionally, sending it as an html email may run afoul of spam filters. Doubly so, since you are, in effect, carpet-mailing all the addresses in an entire company.
Either send the PDF or so the email as plain text.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:14 AM on April 3, 2008
I think the nicest thing to do would be to have a brochure that they can download stored on a web server, along with whatever HTML you'd want, and plan to include highlights and a link in the e-mail. Then, send your content in plain text; perhaps not an exhaustive missive, depending on how much content you have. It's generally best etiquette to avoid sending attachments to a whole list of people.
Put more time and thought than is the norm into the composition of the text, and into breaking it up and formatting the e-mail so that it reads well. Include a one or two-line summary at the top of the message indicating what the contents are below, so they'll know to keep reading even if the beginning doesn't sound that interesting.
You probably will anyway, but this occurred to me: Include some kind of information about prices, even if that's not in your brochure, so they'll know whether they'd just be wasting your and their time with a further inquiry (they may assume you're more expensive than you are).
The clients you really want will notice that you've put thought behind all this.
posted by amtho at 7:21 AM on April 3, 2008
Put more time and thought than is the norm into the composition of the text, and into breaking it up and formatting the e-mail so that it reads well. Include a one or two-line summary at the top of the message indicating what the contents are below, so they'll know to keep reading even if the beginning doesn't sound that interesting.
You probably will anyway, but this occurred to me: Include some kind of information about prices, even if that's not in your brochure, so they'll know whether they'd just be wasting your and their time with a further inquiry (they may assume you're more expensive than you are).
The clients you really want will notice that you've put thought behind all this.
posted by amtho at 7:21 AM on April 3, 2008
I do find having to open an attachment to be an inconvenient extra step. Especially if it's unsolicited (by me) information, and I have 35 other messages to go through, I'm liable to just skip it. Also, X copies of a large PDF file sent to people who may not really be interested in it is yet another imposition on the sad abused little mail servers of the world.
posted by amtho at 7:23 AM on April 3, 2008
posted by amtho at 7:23 AM on April 3, 2008
Send some cursory information in text with a link to a website with full information. There's no sense duplicating information or sending out a PDF that may become out-of-date, and people who elect to use only text-based email do so for a reason (I know I do).
posted by loiseau at 8:01 AM on April 3, 2008
posted by loiseau at 8:01 AM on April 3, 2008
This thread is closed to new comments.
Don't force-feed them anything. Send what you have to say in multiple formats and their mailer will pick out the best one to display according to their settings. Well-written HTML will decay into plain text in most smart mail clients automatically. (Some, anyway. Quoth the magic 8-ball: Outlook not good.)
(I often read in plain text, as it removes the fluff. If someone can't distill into cogent sentences their reasoning for wanting me to behave in a new way, then their ideas are usually crap anyway.)
posted by cmiller at 6:47 AM on April 3, 2008