1. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. T. Rowe Price, Invest With Confidence and the Bighorn Sheep logo is a registered trademark of T. Rowe Price Group, Inc. HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants November 2010 Internal use only Electronic Publishing

2. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 1 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants AGENDA  Introduction to HTML E-mail  What is HTML?  How does it differ from print?  Creating and editing HTML templates  Formatting  Tables  Images/graphics  Putting the HTML into StrongMail  Testing  Launching a StrongMail Mailing  List uploading  Creating Mailing & Launch  Using Word to send e-mail

3. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 2 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Email — Built on HTML HTML is the computer language that email programs use to display our emails. We write HTML for a wide variety of email programs. HTML = Hyper Text Markup Language HTML is a language that defines things like fonts, colors, image placement, and general structure. Like a building, HTML code needs to be built from a strong foundation. Everything is interrelated and elements are added like bricks, piece by piece. An error anywhere in the HTML code may cause the entire email to display incorrectly. Example: To display the banner image above, we would write the following HTML code:

4. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 3 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Print vs. Web: How they are structured Print — With print projects the entire product is one package. Email — The HTML that is contained within the email spells out the email’s text, fonts, font colors, links, and general structure. Elements created outside of HTML:  Photos  Banners  Buttons  Thumbnails  Logos  PDFs They have to be uploaded to our server elsewhere on the web and pulled into the email using code.

5. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 4 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Print vs. Web, how they are seen Print — With print the final product looks the same to everyone who sees it. The product will look the way the designer expects it to look. Email — With HTML emails different factors change how we see e-mail. Platforms: Macs, PCs, mobile devices (iPhone, Droid, Blackberry) E-mail clients: Outlook 2003, 2007, Gmail, Hotmail, Thunderbird, Lotus Notes, etc… Web Browsers: Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Chrome, etc… Electronic Publishing tests for over 30 email renderings They all have their own method of displaying HTML emails, which raises the challenge of coding properly to make sure the content is being viewed as consistently as possible.

6. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 5 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants E-mails and how they are seen Here is one of many examples of how e-mails are translated differently between email browsers. Notice the TRP logo has moved (A), the spacing between the Nav bar and content changed (B), and the link towards the bottom has changed formatting (C). GmailOutlook 2003 A C B

7. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 6 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants StrongMail Testing tool This tool shows views of all the most popular email browsers and how our templates perform in those browsers. EP makes sure to test templates in a variety of settings before mailing or releasing.

8. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 7 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Creating and editing HTML templates First step in the process is to look through the job jacket to make sure we have everything we need. What an EP Specialist looks for:  EP Form  StrongMail Form (filled out completely)  Markup (It is important to make sure that you are using a PDF of an email that has been created by EP. PDFs made by other departments will look different)  Any necessary inserts or images that pertain to the job

9. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 8 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Reviewing the Markup

10. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 9 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Working on HTML - HTML is edited or created in a couple of different programs and compared against the markup

11. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 10 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Font Formatting All text gets formatted by code. Styles have to be set for every block of text. Some special characters have their own code. Code Examples Common edits and how they look in HTML code & = & Bold Italic Font = Bold Italic Font “quotations” = “quotations” ® = ®

12. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 11 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Working on HTML Simple changes that may seem simple require more complex solutions. For example, if the markup requests that the Time and Location below be indented and lined up we can’t just tab it over. The HTML code that creates the table looks like this: Formatted: In order to indent and line up the times and locations a table needs to be constructed to lock the content in place.

13. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 12 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Editing button text - Changes to the text on RWC buttons (and most other graphical elements) are done in Photoshop Photoshop is a image manipulation program. Most graphic buttons are images and not live text. A new image needs to be created in order to change the text on the button.

14. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 13 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Uploading the button - Every element for each email project needs to be hosted on T. Rowe Price’s secure hosting server. Vignette - One of our hosting servers. Items Uploaded separate from HTML Button Banners Photos Logos PDFs

15. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 14 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Setting up emails in StrongMail Once EP has completed production on an HTML code we use StrongMail to add the tracking tags to links and to connect the email to its appropriate test and final mailing lists.

16. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 15 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Setting up emails in StrongMail The raw HTML code created in previous steps is pasted into the StrongMail template editing window.

17. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 16 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Setting up emails in StrongMail Tracking tags are added and named for links. This gives the ability to monitor the effectiveness of the emails by tracking who is clicking on which links.

18. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 17 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Setting up emails in StrongMail StrongMail allows us to send test versions of the email to test links and verify edits have been made correctly.

19. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 18 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Setting up emails in StrongMail QC Process Once the email is created the next step in our process is to check over the code and edits made. HTML team members check each others work using a comprehensive checklist to ensure both the code and edits are done correctly.

20. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 19 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Launching out of StrongMail Items we look for when launching  Signed off PDF of the latest proof provided by EP. Using EP’s proof is important to ensure we are using the correct version by comparing time and date stamps.  StrongMail form filled out completely  Final recipient list, in.csv format. This can be sent to EP in earlier rounds. We verify the name of this file against what is placed on the EP form to make sure we are using the correct file.

21. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 20 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Launching out of StrongMail When a final mailing list is submitted, EP checks the file name against the one listed on the SM req form. EP does not edit or alter lists in anyway.

22. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 21 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Launching out of StrongMail Why CSV? Accepted by StrongMail No tabs Plain text Ideally a list file contains only email address and names. Other content like mailing addresses or plan name are not necessary. Why CSV? Accepted by StrongMail No tabs Plain text Ideally a list file contains only email address and names. Other content like mailing addresses or plan name are not necessary. Additional tabs may contain content we don’t want. YES NO

23. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 22 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Launching out of StrongMail List Reporting When we upload a list into StrongMail, sometimes addresses are rejected because it has found duplicates or malformed addresses. When this happens, an email will be sent to the Communications Consultant with upload results. We request approval for this from the Communications Consultant so they are aware of the final total. An example of this email is below. Hello, The recipient list supplied for the above job has been uploaded to StrongMail. Of the 2,326 total recipients, 2,154 were accepted by StrongMail. The rest were rejected due to possible reasons such as duplicate, malformed, or missing email addresses. At this time, EP cannot provide a list of which addresses were not accepted. Please advise if these results are OK or if you wish to submit a new list. Please respond to all attached to this email.

24. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 23 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Launching out of StrongMail Once the mailing is set up, it is QC’d by another team member. After a mailing has launched After a mailing has launched we will send an email requesting a fulfillment report. After that has been sent out, the job has been completed. QC checks: To, From Reply To information Send test mailing Verify links Scheduled time for launch Mailing failures

25. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 24 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Sending Emails Out of StrongMail vs. Microsoft Word Emails should NEVER be sent out of Microsoft Word. StrongMail: Word: Microsoft Word Emails: Adds extra, bad code May not send properly Change the appearance May be tagged as SPAM May get TRP Blacklisted Getting Blacklisted! Means TRP emails will NOT be received by our recipients! The HTML for this email as sent by:

26. Copyright 2009. T. Rowe Price. All rights reserved. 25 HTML E-mail Overview for Communication Consultants Thanks! Questions regarding StrongMail and HTML e-mails? Please Contact the Electronic Publishing mailbox at electronic_publishing@troweprice.com