Hi Andrew,

I have an online shop selling paper products (mostly labels, envelopes & other packaging materials) and have a pretty large customer base (1800 records so far). I was planning to send out a newsletter or some sort of e-mail promotion but struggling with formatting – do I need to get a designer to create a full colour advert and then code it into HTML?

Or plain text e-mail would be ok?

Obviously, I don’t want to spend too much money on this as I don’t know whatever it will work or not, this will be my first e-mail blast to my list.

Any advice would be highly appreciated.

Thanks,
Oliver (UK)

Hi Oliver,

Thanks for your e-mail.

First of all – let me congratulate you on FINALLY doing this! You have no idea how many online businesses are falling into same trap – having customer contact details but NOT using them! Sending out regular e-mails to your previous customers is the easiest way to make extra sales, without spending a penny!

Now, as far as e-mail formatting goes – it really depends on your market, your relationship with your customers and your ability to create good looking adverts. Each format has its advantages and disadvantages:

Full Colour, HTML Emails

These are very popular and look great! If you can get a good designer working on your e-mail design, your promos will look very professional, click through rate from opened e-mails will be high, if correct images/marketing message used. However, there are 2 problems wit these e-mails:

a) They’ ll cost you money (quality design + coding will set you back at £50 or so)

b) Most e-mail service providers (Gmail, Yahoo etc.) will BLOCK images in all e-mails. This is a serious problem, as people will have to make a click to allow pictures to load up.

While £50 for an effective e-mail campaign isn’t that much for a list of 1800 it could be too much for people just starting out, with a list of say – 100 customers. Not much we can do about second problem – apart from including a link in top area of e-mail that says something like “Click Here If You Can’t See Anything” OR “Read This Email Online” and send people to an online version or your newsletter.

Plain Text Emails

YES, these still work and are actually very popular, more popular than full colour, HTML graphical emails. These are cost effective (FREE) and very easy to set-up. In fact, it will take you just 10 minutes or so to put together a simple e-mail promotion and send it out to your list.

Good thing about these e-mails is that everyone will be able to read your message as there won’t be any picture to load. Downside however is that they won’t look as professional as custom designed graphical e-mails. This can be a problem if you position yourself in a very official, corporate style.

On the other hand, if you position your company in a more friendly, personal way (Expert advice, Twitter, Facebook & other social marketing), plain text e-mails are totally ok to use. If your business is based around YOU, as a personality, there’s nothing wrong in sending out such a simple, plain text e-mails as you’re a FRIEND to your customers and friends do not spend £50 to create complex, HTML coded e-mails

FINALLY - whatever method you choose, make sure you do it at all!!! While creating a custom designed promo e-mail may be a tricky job (to find all kind of excuses of not doing it), ANYONE can put together a simple, plain text e-mail and send it out within 10 minutes. You better do something, even if it doesn’t have that professional glance you’re looking for.

And of course – don’t forget about the CONTENT of your message! As if you’re not offering something valuable to your customers, they won’t purchase from you – be it a fancy, full colour OR a simple text e-mail!

Hope this helps,

Thanks,
Andrew

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