HTML email is a tricky business due to the number of third party readers and how loosely they may follow standards.  Derek Allard posted this gem which is a great help in achieving broad compatibility.

One thing to be aware of is that different email clients handle html email very differently.  The screenshot of your recieved mail shows bullets, bolding, and text changes.  Those are not possible in text email, so this confirms that the mail is in fact being sent as html.

The next step is to try to build a letter that can be handled well by all email clients.  To this end, you may want to go with a pre-designed email template.  Mailchip has some free templates, and also, Campaignmonitor.com has some nice resources, particularly how to test HTML emails and A guide to CSS support in email.

There are also some new issues specific to HTML email in Outlook.

Category:Mailing List
Category:Email