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Flashing
your Email: Using Flash and Rich Media in your
Mailings
Lately there has been a great deal
of interest in adding Flash to your everyday run-of-the-mill
email so you can send it to your clients, prospects
or newsletter subscribers. Marketing has descended
from upon high and declared it, the small business
client wants it, and an executive in management
has read about it.
Well, why not?
The fact of the matter is that email
HTML browsers are just not equal to their web
browser equivalents. This is further made complex
by the wide variety of settings, preferences,
security updates, versions, and third-party applications
which make the user experience hard to predict.
This is an interesting problem to
contend with when creating, designing and marketing
your HTML email. Most likely you are about to
hate what I am about to say, however, please do
not shoot the messenger.
You should never use Flash or any
other Rich Media piece in your HTML email unless
you absolutely know that the email client your
recipient uses can handle Flash content. Further,
you should only send Flash/Rich Media content
to someone who has requested it, or you have an
agreed upon marketing relationship. The first
time that I had to wait almost an hour to download
what turned out to be a Flash Email, I was on
a Hotel dialup account. That one Flash Email cost
nearly $10.00 and an hour of my time.
Not exactly the relationship you
want to enter into with your customers or clients.
So if you absolutely have to send
Flash content via email, here are a few tips you
should remember.
Do not
try to control your Flash with active scripting.
Due to the wide variety of email
clients, browsers, security settings, updates,
and service packs installed, it is difficult to
predict how a script will execute against any
given email client. JavaScripts can cause browsers
& Outlook 2000 to disable and active scripting
contained in an email document (there has been
an increase in email security due to malicious
scripts).
You're
better of attaching or sending a link.
The majority of web-based email
clients (Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.) will strip out
your Flash content. It is not uncommon to send
embedded Flash content only to have the recipient
open it in their web-based client and see absolutely
nothing.
You also cannot rely on a <NOEMBED>
to provide an alternate link for the content.
You will need to include a text link before or
after your Flash content for all Web-based recipients
and those whose systems, ISP, network security,
or other variables interfere with their viewing
of Flash content.
By sending your Flash content as
an attachment or a link, you can work around some
of these limitations imposed by making the Flash
content render in the browser rather in your email.
That way, if your recipient has the plugin, they
can view the Flash file.
Make sure
your files do not immediately start playing.
Control your content with an onClick,
or other event. Just a nice "Click here for
an important message." is all you need. Allow
the viewer to start the presentation when they
are ready. A Flash or Shockwave piece, which begins
streaming if viewed in an Outlook preview window,
will start a second time when the email is opened.
This will usually cause quite a mess with the
recipient's sound system, not to mention distort
your intended message.
Nothing will get your Flash email
deleted quicker than if it causes unexpected sounds
to suddenly come pouring loudly from the recipient's
computer during the workday.
These are just a few things you
should watch out for if you plan to design, send
and expect responses to your Flash emails.
Flash & other Rich Media may
all be year 2003 - "bleeding edge" for
the world of web browsers. Unfortunately your
average HTML Email browser seems stuck at about
early 1998.
This
article may be reprented freely, email tom@templatekit.com
for an HTML or MS Word Version. Article may not
be edited or altered in any way.
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