When and How To Use Plain Text Emails

By Pam Neely May perhaps 6, 2022

Do not ignore basic textual content e-mail. At times, they can outperform fancier HTML e-mail.

Basic textual content emails are a minimalist marketer’s very best close friend. And when they are often viewed as “old faculty,” text-based email messages are nonetheless read through and despatched all the time. You have almost certainly been sending some on your own.

So if paring your email messages down to their most straightforward kind, or building your email messages readable on products like Apple watches appears exciting, keep looking through. This post will include:

What is a simple text email?

A simple text e mail is what it sounds like: It is an electronic mail information that only includes textual content. There are no photographs or graphics and no formatting. All the one-way links are published out.

Here’s an case in point of a basic textual content email:

And here’s the HTML model of that very same e mail:

The variance concerning basic textual content and HTML email messages

As you can see in the illustrations above, basic text emails look like… basic textual content. HTML emails search far more like a web-site web site, total with an picture, a coloured qualifications, and embedded back links – all the visual features most entrepreneurs want to have in their emails. 

Probably most marketers, but not all of them. One particular survey of e mail marketers confirmed that only 20% of marketers choose to deliver only HTML e-mails. 62% choose to deliver a hybrid HTML/basic textual content email, and 16% actually like to deliver only text-based e-mail. 

This is regular with e mail advertising ideal techniques. It is also fairly effortless to do. Virtually all electronic mail internet marketing providers enable people ship two versions of their e-mail – text and HTML. And many email products and services will instantly create a text model of each electronic mail. 

When two variations of an e mail are despatched (working with “​​multi-portion MIME format,” if you want to get geeky), every single subscriber’s email client will show either the HTML or the plain textual content variation, relying on the configurations in the subscriber’s e-mail customer. 

For the e mail senders who expressly want to deliver only text e-mails, numerous e mail service companies make it possible for them to established up their e mail marketing campaign so it only goes out as simple textual content.

This is why you’re probably sending plain text e-mail now – since your e mail assistance supplier immediately makes a textual content variation of every electronic mail you send. 

When to use a textual content-based mostly email alternatively of an HTML email

So why do some electronic mail marketing products and services quickly develop textual content-only e-mails? Is there at any time a fantastic explanation to ship only a text-primarily based e mail?

These are all good thoughts. 

Basic text emails continue to have their put. Below are five reasons to use them:

• Basic text e-mails have a smaller sized file sizing than HTML email messages, so they load more rapidly

Text-only e-mails are terrific if your subscribers come about to have a slow internet relationship. So… say you are sending email messages to hikers in the backcountry or to people today in other distant places. If you sent them a textual content-only concept, they’d be a lot more very likely to be capable to read through it without having to wait a prolonged time for it to load. 

• Textual content-only e-mail can be go through on far more gadgets.

Simple textual content email messages can be study by “internet of things” type of products like Apple Watches, or even by apps that can read through people’s emails to them whilst they’re driving. 

This also implies they’re far better for accessibility. For those that rely on text-to-speech audience, these email messages are simpler to be go through aloud for people with eyesight impairments.

• Simple text emails can have a much more own feel.

In some cases copywriters, coaches, or consultants will send text-only e-mail mainly because they want their emails to look extra particular. And a plain textual content concept does search a lot more like a concept you’d get from a close friend. 

How nicely this tactic will get the job done will count on your viewers and your copywriting techniques. The moment all the fairly shots and style and design are long gone, all which is remaining is your duplicate.

• Textual content-only e-mails can be a good structure for transactional email messages

A person other occasion the place you may see a textual content email now is if you’ve positioned an get on-line. Not all ecommerce sites send text-only transactional e-mails, but a lot of do. 

You will not be able to include things like merchandise pictures or social media icon backlinks if you use a basic textual content electronic mail, but if you are just acquiring started off with your enterprise, sending a plain-text email is a excellent adequate get started. 

• Some ecommerce consultants say that “ugly” (aka simple) e-mails transform far better than “pretty” (HTML) e-mails

Why? They say for the reason that unpleasant emails stand out in the inbox better. There are also stories that unattractive e-mails get the job done improved for fundraising as properly.

The jury’s out on this – but you could possibly want to examination the idea. Produce a split-examination of a couple of unappealing emails and test them against your prettier HTML e-mail. Permit us know what you discover out!

Do textual content email messages enhance e-mail deliverability?

No. But a few decades back, there was some dialogue on the web about regardless of whether or not simple text email messages enhanced e mail deliverability. In the long run, it wasn’t genuine. 

AWeber e mail deliverability professional Chris Wong indicates that any get worried about HTML versus plain text e mail supply is misplaced. He suggests,

The superior thoughts to ask are the following:

1 – Who are your subscribers (are they Gmail, Yahoo, and so on, users, or are they B2B users)?

2 – Has the user subscribed to be mailed and furnished their consent to be mailed, and are they expecting your messages?

3 – Are the messages being sent engaging to the user or are they currently being dismissed, or worse, consumers are complaining about them?  On a regular basis glimpse at your engagement amount traits.

There are a variety of indicators involved that lead to no matter whether messages go to the Inbox.  Dependent on who you are mailing and the Mailbox Supplier they reside with, that will dictate where by your focus really should be.  Significant Mailbox Vendors will seriously weigh consumer engagement, both equally beneficial and negative.  The evaluation from those people will have a strong impact on the place the messages go.   

Be wary of what’s in your messages as effectively.  After paying out awareness to your engagement fees and bounce fees, then look at if any website link domains are blocklisted, or if there are specific phrases or phrases that may possibly be contributing to spam detection.  This will entail tests your concept, seeking distinctive versions, as effectively as carrying out split-tests, which can be valuable to check subject matter traces and message written content, providing insight into what performs ideal.   

So set that electronic mail marketing fantasy aside. There are good explanations to deliver plain text e-mail, but electronic mail deliverability is not one of them. 

How to make text-only e-mails look superior

Simple textual content e-mails can be “dressed up” a bit extra than just basic text. This is particularly crucial for scannability and phone calls to action.

As you in all probability know, most men and women really don’t browse all the duplicate on a website page (you aren’t the only one who skims!). We can not cease this habits, so we have to adapt to it. Even pro copywriters will make their duplicate effortless to scan. 

To make your emails a lot easier to scan, try:

• A person-line or incredibly shorter paragraphs
• Bullet points 
• Basic figures to emphasize text
• Putting your phone to motion on a line by by itself
• Working with a postscript to highlight the key message of your e mail
• From time to time working with all caps (make sure you use sparingly)

This text electronic mail from electronic mail copywriting learn Ben Settle employs lots of of all those finest methods, such as 1-line paragraphs, the phone to action on its very own line, and a couple terms in all caps.

Clean up automobile-generated basic text emails 

So you possibly have currently been sending simple text emails, simply because most e mail promoting products and services mail each text and HTML versions of each and every e mail.

But have you ever checked how your basic text e-mails look?

From time to time automobile-created textual content e-mail get a very little garbled, so it’s not a undesirable idea to do a swift place look at of your email messages right before they go out. You are going to likely only have to include a couple of line breaks, but it will make your e-mails a lot easier to browse. This is primarily correct if you are likely to send out HTML e-mails in a two or a few-column layout.

Here’s how to do this in an AWeber account. This is the see of the information editor. It displays the HTML version of an e-mail message. To edit the plain text model, just simply click on the basic textual content icon in the reduced still left-hand corner of the display screen.

Immediately after you click on that, you will see the text model of your e-mail. 

Even now, basic textual content emails have their put

So that’s the 411 on basic textual content e-mails. They ought to have far more focus than they get. Depending on your audience and your electronic mail promoting goals, they might get the job done actually effectively for you. And if you have any effects to share about basic textual content e-mail that outperformed HTML emails, we’d like to listen to about them in the feedback.