Tutorial: Insert HTML and Image for Email Blast in Outlook 2011 for Mac

The Problem:
I had a client who wanted an email blast done and even though we were hiring an email marketing company to send out the bulk of the emails, the client still wanted to have a single “functioning test” sent to them so they could see how it would work before sending a mass amount out. Simple enough, right? It should have been.

I had just switched over from Entourage to Outlook on Mac and you used to be able to just post the html code in an Entourage new message and voila, but with Outlook its a VERY simple fix, but without knowing how it becomes very complicated.

Here’s the walk-through on how to create a complex HTML Email Blast. Note: There are MANY Email Blast companies that will do large numbers of emails in bulk without labeling “spam” and you can even get very sophisticated stats from these companies. Do your research.

 

The Solution:

First, here’s what you’ll need:

• A Mac running OSX
• Microsoft Office 2011 with Outlook
• A web hosting provider to house your image  (If you don’t have one, I would advise using Dropbox to host your image for the time being)
• An HTML editor (Coda, TextMate, Dreamweaver, or whatever you’re comfortable with just as long as it’s not MS Word.)

We’ll also assume that:

• You have basic HTML know how
• Capable of uploading an image file to a web server

Step 1
Decide what sort of information you want to display in your email blast.  Even a “click here” button you can create in an HTML editor and it will translate in your Email Blast.

Step 2
Create your email in your HTML editor of choice.  If applicable, upload your image to the web server taking note of the public path (http://www.yourdomain.com/images/advertisement.gif) and inserting it into your HTML editor.

Step 3
Once you have your email signature designed and laid out just as you like, save the file to your Desktop and call it “youreblast.html”

Step 4
Open the “youreblast.html” file that you’ve just created in Chrome, Safari or Firefox (not tested with other browsers)

Step 5
With the browser open and on the foreground and your Email Blast file displayed correctly, click on it, press Command + A on your keyboard to “Select All”, then press Command + C on your keyboard to “Copy”.

Step 6
Open Outlook > Open “New Message” > and press Command + V on your keyboard to “Paste”.

Step 7
Insert as many email addresses as Outlook will allow without automatically making your Email Blast “Spam” and enjoy.