Email Newsletter in HTML - help needed

[kultic]

I am having difficulties perfecting my weekly email newsletters. I'm having one main problem. My emails are sent sort of as an attachment. When the email is opened, it appears correctly on the screen automatically, but I notice that when I get newsletters from places like eluxury, nordstroms, and other larger online retailers, they do not arrive with a paperclip. Mine do. Any idea as to how I can change this? Do I even need to change this?

Also, I notice that when I look at old emails, their format is totally distorted. For example, it will appear as just a pink screen. But when I originally sent it out, it was fine. How can I fix this?

I am currently usung Dreamweaver to make my emails and Group Mail Free to email it. Are these ok, or should I use soemthing else?

Thanks!

[LiquidReflex]

There are 2 different ways you can sent HTML e-mails, one is by including the images with the e-mail, the other is by reference. The way you are describing it sounds like it is sending the images and such with the e-mail, thus you are getting a paperclip (because the images are attached). Most other HTML e-mails, like the ones you get from larger companies, are just HTML which reference the files on their server. No images are actually "in" the e-mail, it's just all code.

There are benefits and downfalls with both.

Like you said, the downfall of sending with images is you get the paperclip and the files are attached. This could scare people off from opening it or filter it out before they can see it. On the benefit side, the user doesn't have to be online to view it properly.

Referencing images will only send the code in the actual message, but will then call to the images via the internet to load them. This is a benefit as it makes the e-mail smaller and does not require any sort of attachments. The issues are that you have to be online to view it, and you are loading from your server (thus using some of your bandwidth).

[kultic]

Thanks. My newsletter does not show up with an attachment in outlook, but it does in hotmail, which is better than both I wonder how to get it to stop in hotmail too ... anyone?

[manipogo]

Try Gammadyne mailer. It's a great mailer / mailing list manager / newsletter composer that allows you to send multi-part messages text and html...

[cubechris]

which newsletter program would you reccomend?

[mixmastermidori]

I also recommend Gammadyne mailer. They're constantly updating the software, and the updates are free. It's very powerful and cost effective.

[naesmithson]

I have had the most luck using Campaign Monitor, very decent price and your emails will never come up as attachments.

[toddrho]

I currently use Autoresponder Pro for all my email list needs, and I like it for the most part. I have nearly 50,000 people on my email list and using a service like constant contact just seems real expensive to me when I can do it all myself for nothing. It is much more time consuming though to be sure!

toddrho

[universal_knac]

There are some helpful software out there that can help you with this. Try Download.com you may find one there.

[eldante]

How exactly does the email receiver get the code though? When I send a email what do I paste within the email so the reciever sees the code?