how do I create an email marketing campaign?

[slarson75 webforumsuser@macromedia.com]

You know those annoying emails you get from ebay, etc... how do I create one of my own from scratch?
I've seen plenty of online services that have templates for you to plug in the information
(such as [url]www.constantcontact.com[/url]), but I don't know where to even start my research for building one myself.
Are these things called MIME, dynamic email or what? Is there a recommended program I should use
to build them? ANY info would be extremely helpful!

Thanks so much! :)
Shari

[TropeIA]

Hi Shari,

Here's how I do it:

1. I build my page in DW.
2. I upload all the images needed to a particular folder on my server.
3. I then change all references to my images and links from relative to absolute ([url]http://www.mysite.com/myimage.jpg[/url])
4. Then what you have to do is use a server language to send the email.

For instance, to email a picture using ASP/VBscript and CDO (a popular email component) it's as simple as this - running this ASP script will send an email and inside the email would contain a picture. Building on this example you should be able to build your email campaign.

I hope this helps!

-------------- code start -------------------

dim mail

'Create the object
set mail = server.CreateObject("CDONTS.NewMail")
mail.From = "Shari@SharisSite.com" 'This is the address that the email is
mail.To = "massitalian@netscape.net" 'This is the email address that you are
mail.Subject = "Heres my pic" 'The subject as it will appear in the
mail.BodyFormat = 0 ' 1 = text only
mail.MailFormat = 0 ' 1 = text only

mailbody = "Hey there, here is a pic of me!" & "<p>"
mailbody = mailbody & "<img src='http://www.sharisSite.com/mypic.jpg'>"
mail.body = mailbody
mail.Send 'Send the message out.
set mail = nothing 'Clean up after yourself.