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HTML Email Explained.

an introduction to email development.

If you don’t know what an email is then could you raise your hand in the air? Perfect, (Snap), I just took a picture to commemorate the moment I met someone worse than Patrick who literally lives under a rock. 😂

duhhhhhhhh

But don’t feel bad we learn every day, right? Well, an email is an electronic mail that is a letter that was sent to you through and on the internet. Wikipedia defines an email as a method of exchanging messages (“mail”) between people using electronic devices. These mail are usually made and written in the interfaces provided by our email clients e.g below is an example of me writing an email to my crush with Gmail. The email clearly states how much I like her 😌

an email to my crush

Aside from my genius wordplay, we can see that the email above is written with pure text. There are no special additions even If I want to add a picture I could do that by clicking the button provided by Gmail. It’s different when it comes to an HTML email. An HTML email is an email that was written with HTML and CSS. That’s the only difference between a regular email and an HTML email. Below is a live example.

I stumbled upon this niche of programming when I was 16–17 but I wasn’t that interested then. But recently I’ve been watching Ivan hurt’s videos on youtube and it seems like a really lucrative skill to learn. So I’m on a journey to become an email developer and get the bag. And of course blog about my journey. If you want to follow me along on this journey here’s what you gonna need:

1. A code editor e.g VS code, Sublime text e.t.c (add the EMMET add-on) for writing our code
2. A browser (or a Litmus Subscription if you can afford it) for previewing our emails.

WHAT I HAVE LEARNT SO FAR

• Ray Tomlinson invented the modern concept of email.

• The year the first email was sent? 1971. It was the first use of an email with an @ symbol.
• The first spam marketing email was sent in 1978 by a guy named Gary Thuerk

— Why emails matter:

1. 3.9 billion email users in 2019 (Radicati Group). That’s more than every social media platform 🤯
2. People averagely spend 2.5 hours per weekday in their inboxes
3. $42 is made for every dollar spent (Litmus). So don’t be fooled by all those bad-mouthing HTML emails

If you’re feeling discouraged by the article above here are more reasons why emails matter

1. Email is easy to send and relatively affordable. Remember $42 dollars is made for every dollar spent
2. Tracking email is simple. ( More on this later, there are services for this)
3. Testing email is quick and makes iterating easy. (If you have an email marketing campaign idea that you’re sure would work you can test it out immediately, get your answers immediately, and try again)
4. Email is forgettable. Sucks for posterity, but good when we screw up. And trust me we are gonna screw up 😂. Besides ReallyGoodEmails collect cool emails that shouldn’t be forgotten

The best part about this niche of development is that No one really owns email.

• Emails are universal and prevalent
• And Emails make a lot. I mean a lot of money 🤯

Lastly Web != HTML

So if you’re doing this with me here are the skills we need to get the bag.

1. Decent Knowledge of HTML & CSS

• Inline CSS
• Tables
• Media Queries

2. Email Service Provider

• MailChimp, Campaigner, Constant Contact ( We need to know how to insert code in there)
• Autoresponse
• Sequencing

3. EmailOnAcid or Litmus

4. Photoshop

• At least how to remove assets.

So yeah let’s make all the paper 💵 by going through these classes🎒 ( Click here for the next part of this series). Also If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask me on Twitter or if you need serious tutoring you can reach me here

References

1. Venessa’s HTML Email course on Skillshare https://venessabaez.com/link-in-bio/
2. Ivan hurt’s Youtube channel
3. HTML Email v2 by Jason Rodriguez