"You can't"

I'm fairly sure that's wrong ... You can export html data by using the "Save to Web" feature in Illustrator. Save the image as a jpeg (I haven't tried it with GIF, but it should work). When you select Save from that dialog, choose as Format "html and images." That will create an html file and a separate jpeg (or GIF). The html file has your hyperlink set as an image map.

The drawbacks: Your text is not going to be text any more, but only part of a larger bitmapped image. This increases the file size and can slow down some dial-up users.

The linked jpeg image file has to be placed on the Web where the html file can link to it from all users' computers. I'm not sure if it will work to include both the html file and the linked jpeg in your e-mail. I haven't tried that. You'll need to double check your links to make sure that the image file is still correctly hyperlinked to your html file, or your recipients will get nothing but a broken link image (with no text, because of drawback 1, above).

You're better off learning a little basic html in GoLive(?), Dreamweaver, or even in Netscape's Composer (part of Navigator, which is fairly handy for a lot of basic html creation).

Or, as Scott says, just send a link in the email. You can create your html page and post it online with all the hyperlinks you want.