So I want to make a HTML news letter to be sent out. I want to make a "Forward to Friend" button, but how would I link that?
The short answer is that you can't. Email clients don't provide a way for emails to trigger their Forward functionality.
The closest you could come would be to provide a link to a form which asks people to give you email addresses belonging to third parties to which you could then send email. (If I was that third party, the email would be dropped directly in my spam bin, possibly after filling out the annoying form for reporting spammers that is available from the OIC)
The good news is that email clients have Forward functionality built in, so you don't need to reinvent the wheel.
The little trick I use is to leave the "mailto" part blank, and then in the the "body" section put in a link that points to an online archive of the html email I just sent them.
Like this:
mailto:?Subject=Subject%20From%20My%20Original%20Email&body=Link%20To%20Online%20Archive%20of%20Original%20Email:%20http://www.bing.com/
In outlook, link is automatically turned into a hyperlink AND their cursor defaults to the "To" field because it's the only thing left blank.
I did this as a quick work around until we code a landing page for them to fill out a form and enter their friends email address, etc. This way if anyone comes across a link to our archived email on our SITE, they'll have the handy link in it to auto-open their email for them and start a message to their friend(s).
I'd try to go with the server side script route.
With PHP, use the mail function and retrieve the TO:$person from a post variable that is sent.
You could link it like:
Click here to forward this email to a friend!
GraphicMail do it by adding a link into the footer of the email that takes you to a 'Forward to' webpage (http://www.graphicmail.com/site/forward_to_friend.aspx?SiteID=xxx&SID=x&Section=xxx&FromEmail=your-mail#domain.com&token=&EmailID=X) that allows you to forward the mail assuming that all the newsletters you send out have a unique ID.
Related
I've got a basic contact form that asks for email address and a message, which is then emailed to me. I want to add a checkbox after the email input that gives the option to subscribe to a newsletter as well. I can do the form, I can do a newsletter sign up, I'm just not sure how to combine the two. Any ideas?
Edit: To clarify, I'm planning to use a basic html form. I was hoping there'd be someway to combine that with a mailchimp or phplist newsletter signup.
You need an onSubmit() action with a method - generally post, and you'll probably have to use PHP and link it to that page so it knows to go there to process the action =}
in that page is where the clever stuff will happen like subscribe the user.
(Connect to the DB, add the email address to said table/column etc...)
Unfortunately this is not something I can just give you a snippet to insert - it'll have to be completed your side.
Is it possible to send an email with a form inside ?
We want to send an email to our subscribers with an input text inside the email to get a complementary information, I havn't seen this before, is it possible to do that ?
If yes, which problems could we meet with that solution ?
I do not think that this is possible...
and even if it is, I wouldn't choose to do it.
You can not know what device your user will be on and if his mail client will support this.
If I were you, I'd just link them to the online form they have to fill. (You could use Google Docs for instance) or do it on your own website with an html form and write it to a database.
Why go through the pain of having to deal with hundrets of emails?
We are building a webservice that allows users to send files as attachments to an e-mail-address like 'long hash'#files.example.com
We would like to allow them to add this e-mail-address to their mail-software with a nice name in a simple manner. We have two ideas for how to achieve this:
Send an e-mail to them from the e-mail-address.
Pros: The user don't have to do anything
Cons: It might stick in the spam filter. Not sure if most e-mail-software adds incoming e-mail addresses to the contacts.
Allow the user to click a mailto: link and send an empty mail to the e-mail-address.
Pros: Less risk of lack of support in e-mail software.
Cons: Forcing the user to do something.
Currently we're considering doing both. Does anyone have any knowledge about these approaches or maybe some other suggestion on how to achieve the same effect?
How about a vCard?
You could use a HTML link:
<a href="data:text/vcard,BEGIN:VCARD
VERSION:2.1
N:Last name;First name
FN:Full name
ORG:Me Ltd.
TITLE:vCard Title
PHOTO;GIF:http://www.example.com/photo.gif
EMAIL;PREF;INTERNET:hash#example.com
REV:20140215T212230Z
END:VCARD" download="mycard.vcf">Add us to your mailbook</a>
See http://jsfiddle.net/9jZRz/ for a demo.
I have created an html form with text boxes and radio buttons ect.
I can email the form to an email address.
now the problem, when i fill in the form and click reply, i only get my blank html form back no values were left inside the textbox's.
Please help
We did some fairly extensive research about HTML forms in emails for a client of ours. The bottom line is that it barely works, so it’s best to link to a form in a browser.
What Quentin said holds water, many email clients (cough, outlook) are very specific in regards to their support for HTML emails. In fact most don't even support div's or embedded <style> blocks. Let alone an HTML form.
Your best bet is to use a URL that they click on, which in-turn opens up a form for them to fill out. If you need to capture some of their information automatically (such as email). you can generate query strings and in your mailer have it add the information in dynamicallly..
i.e; <a href="http://awesomeform.com/form.php?email=$client_email">
In email it would look like: http://awesomeform.com/form.php?email=myemail#email.com
Either way
If you are insistent on attempting this, use the email boilerplate to get you started. It has a ton of "best practices" and tips/tricks built right into it.
http://htmlemailboilerplate.com/
Complex HTML doesn't mix with many email clients. Forms are especially poorly supported.
Link to an HTML document available over HTTP instead. People can click a link and open it in a regular web browser.
I'm making a simple RSVP form and I'd for users to click a mailto link, which opens an pre-made email with parts already filled out (first name, etc.) and then send it to RSVP for an event. I know this isn't the best way, but it's the simplest I could come up with.
The only problem is that I can't seem to put character return's in the mailto link, so it looks messy. Any idea how?
My mailto link:
RSVP
Since you are placing your data in a URL, you need to encode such characters using %XX hex notation, eg:
RSVP
FYI, keep in mind that not all email programs support multiple parameters to the mailto: protocol, if any at all. You really should look into using a server-side webform instead. Let your users submit feedback to you directly from your website without invoking their local email program at all. Most website hosting services provide such a feature as part of your account, or for a small fee.