HTML Email Marketing or Text Email Marketing, that is the question.

Many people new to email marketing have a misconception of HTML email. They think that an HTML email is made up of text and graphics and a text email is text only. Well, that's kinda right, but not exactly.

An HTML Email can look exactly like a text email with the added benefit of having clickable and trackable links. All professional Internet Marketers send HTML emails and almost none of them include photos or graphics. Their emails are text only, with clickable links.

The main reasons they send HTML emails to their list is because with an HTML email the recipient can:

• Easily click a link to visit a website or landing page rather than have to copy and paste the link which is what they would have to do in a text email.
• Track who clicked on a link; something you can not do with a text mail.

It's also true that Internet Marketers do not send template based emails with photos or graphics. The reason for this is that when an email includes a graphic or a photo, it is often stopped by spam filters.

Do you send HTML or text emails to your list? Why?

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hi, i send both a text & html version of an email. 2 reasons - first, i want the email to be accessible to everyone regardless to their email client. first option being the html version, if unable to be viewed, the text version is available.

second reason - although i don't use graphics, i like the ability to bold subtitles or sub-headlines to draw my reader's eye to specific points. plus using the other features, like bullets, italics, creating text links... html offers.

as you mentioned, having the benefit to click & track links is a terrific advantage in testing actionable results.

my emails are basically all text with some html "sprucing" making it easier to scan & read for subscribers.

mic

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EmailMarketingOverdrive.com

The problem is that, on the one hand you want to avoid unnecessary attachments but, on the other hand, plain text is boring and most people skip it.
It's really completely dependent on your product and your crowd. If you're a company that frequently uses flashy video in your advertising then your clients will expect something flashy in your emails.

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EyeMail Canada Blog

I think you've made a great point. It depends on your audience and what they expect.

As long as your emails are not being blocked/rejected as spam and can handle the automatic removal of graphical components gracefully it should be fine.

Here is the most recent list of spam tests performed by the largest anti-spam tool available:
SpamAssassin: Tests Performed: v3.2.x

Many of these tests are to prevent graphic/image spam techniques. But as long as you know what they are, they are easy to avoid.

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Hey! My very first post at RE. I hope to be a regular contributor.

To answer your question...
I prefer HTML over Plain Text for "newsletter" style emails like this:
In Step With Jonny :: September 2009

If there is only 1 "story" then I usually use Plain Text to "tease" people and if they want the rest of the story they can click the link to the blog where we can put images, video, etc.

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Christopher Loch
Internet Marketing Consultant

Hi Christopher:
We happen to be in the same business: Internet Marketing Coaching. If you get a chance, please visit us at the Internet Marketing Association of Hawaii.

Great post and I agree. We do the same thing with our email marketing campaign.
Aloha, Bob Sommers

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Hard-coded HTML emails are always the safest route (so long as the designer understands the art of HTML email design) because WYSIWYGs do indeed tend to screw things up. But as far as WYSIWYG-created templates go, these are pretty good. As always, you should test your campaigns with our inbox inspector, and consult your physician before any heavy activity.

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