Truth #1: Plain text works better than HTML
Each time you send an email campaign to your subscribers,
readers or customers, you have to make an important decision:
plain text or HTML?
If you choose plain text, you’ll send your email
in a text-only format (like this one), but if you choose
HTML, you can enhance the message with colors, graphics,
and layout elements like tables. Plus, you can include
your company logo and even (gasp!) your picture, if you
dare.
Faced with this choice, most email marketers are presently
choosing HTML as the preferred content type. Why? Because
they believe they can make the email look more compelling
and, therefore, more people will read it and respond to
it.
BUT THEY’RE WRONG
This assumption, it turns out, may be incorrect. HTML
emails get *deleted* more frequently and more quickly than
plain text emails. Across the Internet, more readers actually
prefer plain text emails.
Why? The reason is simple: HTML
emails are perceived as being too commercial. Most email
recipients are fed up
with commercial email, especially the unsolicited variety
(spam), and they tend to associate *any* HTML email with
a pushy sales-like pitch. Plain text emails, on the other hand, are seen as being
*content rich*. If there’s something really important
to be said, the important parts are likely to be found
in the text, not in some logo or ad banner. People intuitively
know that, and as strange as it may seem, plain text emails
actually carry more credibility these days than HTML emails
(that’s a complete flip from three years ago, by
the way).
THE RESEARCH PROVES IT
A marketing firm called Lucid Marketing conducted tests
with AOL users to determine what worked best: HTML or plain
text. The results were staggering: plain text emails consistently
generated higher click rates, sometimes 100% higher!
Consider this: plain text emails simply load faster. And
since so many AOL users are still on dialup lines, it makes
sense that fast-loading emails will be more successful.
THERE’S
A LOT OF BAD HTML OUT THERE When you're deciding between HTML and plain text, keep
in mind that the vast majority of HTML email is very poorly
constructed. Or, to put it bluntly, most HTML email designs
stink! Gaudy colors, flashing animated graphics, gigantic
fonts... you get the picture.
On the bright side, a well-constructed
HTML email can do quite well, but only if the design
is top notch and
stands well above the crowd.
HTML IS LIKELY TO GET FLAGGED
AS SPAM
The big news on email marketing these days isn’t
the subject line, the landing pages, or the offer: it’s
the ability to actually get your email *delivered* to the
big ISPs like AOL, Yahoo and MSN. If your mail gets flagged
as possible spam by these providers, you’ll flush
your campaign results right down the toilet.
And one of
the quickest ways to get your email flagged as spam is
to make it *look* like spam: use HTML and fill
it up with graphics and large fonts!
But plain text emails,
especially when they don’t
contain spam-like words and phrases, tend to sail through
the filters far more easily.
What’s the point of
having a great looking HTML email message if half your
subscribers never see it? Stick
to plain text email and your results will likely improve.
HALF
THE USERS ARE STILL ON DIALUP
I know that broadband is popular, and I personally couldn’t
imagine getting anything done over a dialup account, but
about half the users on the Internet are *still* using
dialup (56K, usually)! That means your HTML emails are
going to be a royal pain for those users to read. Plain
text emails, on the other hand, load in an instant.
MICROSOFT
OUTLOOK 2003 DOESN'T LOAD IMAGES AUTOMATICALLY
To make
matters worse for HTML emails, the new version of Microsoft
Outlook and Outlook Express, the most popular
email clients on the PC, don’t automatically load
HTML graphics. This means your carefully-constructed HTML
email will look *downright ugly* on your recipient’s
preview screen. They won’t get the full graphics
unless they double-click the email and open it. That’s
a totally different operation from email client software
of the past which automatically loaded graphics as part
of the email preview.
EVERYBODY CAN READ PLAIN TEXT
The fact is, every email
client on the planet, no matter what the operating system,
can read plain text emails.
Whether your subscribers are using Hotmail, AOL, Yahoo,
Outlook, or even Linux or Netscape Email, they can read
your plain text messages just fine.
Notice what I’m using? This series is sent to you
using plain text email. Not because it’s fancy
and eye-catching, but because it works.
WILL PLAIN TEXT
WORK FOR YOU?
The fact that *most* Internet users prefer plain text
doesn’t necessarily mean that *your* subscribers
prefer it. I suggest you survey them first. Ask what they
prefer. And then test it yourself and see what results
you get. Or, you could resort to a split list format by
asking subscribers to indicate which format they prefer.
Let
me know what you find. Send me your comments or results
(president@arialsoftware.com) and I’ll add them
to this series for others to read.
NEXT: HOW TO PREVENT
YOUR IN-HOUSE EMAIL LIST FROM VANISHING
In the next
part, I reveal the rarely-recognized truth about how
most in-house email lists are rapidly disappearing
and what you can do to prevent it. If your email list
isn’t
as large as you’d like it to be, or you’re
getting more bounces than you want, you’ll definitely
want to stay tuned for the next issue!
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