How Not to Use Images in an E-Mail Newsletter

If you send out e-mail newsletters in your home based business, how many images do you use in your e-mail? Someone recently asked me if I got her newsletter and I told her yes, but I didn't read it. Why not, she asked, feelings hurt.

It was so filled with images that had been stripped out that it was unreadable and I told her so.

I went on to explain that many e-mail readers, most notably Microsoft Outlook, will strip out linked images from senders who have not been explicitly added to your trusted sender list. Furthermore, there's a good chance Outlook will put such e-mails in its Bulk Mail folder (which is exactly where I fished her e-mail out from). And many of the free online e-mail readers such as Excite and Yahoo are starting to get picky about what they allow to be shown in the e-mail bodies as well.

So if you are doing e-mail newsletters, you can be on the safe side by just sticking to plain text.

Many successful online marketers know this and never use images. One example is Perry Marshall, whose newsletters I've been getting for years. He never uses an image; only words and he's far from the only online marketer who does it this way.

So if you're using images in your home business e-mail newsletters, give some thought to the fact that you may be reducing readership of your newsletter. Save the images for your Web site!