That's an unprofessional and irresponsible way of thinking. You need to be thinking about what's best for your client, not what causes you the least hassle.
would be to just be to use each link as an image
Easiest? Yes, probably. Most effective? Almost certainly not. Here's a link that hints at why:
http://www.campaignmonitor.com/blog/post/3574/image-blocking-in-email-clients-2011/
something like this? [IMG = wireframe]
That's a sensible layout for an untargeted e-shot.
However, email marketing is much more effective if you specifically target segments of your mailing list with different, focussed emails. But that's more for your client to know and work at, really, rather than you. I just thought it worth mentioning.
I'm just wondering what's the best way to build this? Dreamweaver or the like?
Nope, not if you can help it. Far better to hand-code it. Once you've got the design to your liking and approved, build up the basic layout in HTML using nested tables, and use inline CSS styles to match your design. And even when designing, try and think in terms of tables.
Doing it this way will minimize the inevitable rendering issues you're going to encounter across email/webmail platforms [but even then, be prepared for a world of unpleasant surprises from the likes of Outlook and GMail].
not sure what the maximum width is for an e-shot. Thanks
The narrower the better, essentially.
600px is often bandied around as the accepted standard, but I've found that some webmail platforms' display/preview windows are narrower than that, once you take into account other navigation/admin/advert columns. And you've also got to consider the small screens of mobile devices, which are being used to receive emails more than ever.
So I'd go for 540px as an absolute maximum width, and try to get it down to 500px. That being the case, I'd also look at having your secondary product grid go from 3x3 to 4 rows of 2 columns to better utilise that narrower format.
Hope that helps.
